A Critique of Realism

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My friend Frog made this excellent video critiquing realism that i can recommend to you as well: • Rationality, Cooperati...
The war in Ukraine is overly "gepoliticised". That meaning, people exclusively look at it from a geopolitical lense. Often refusing to acknowledge internal political developments within Ukraine, and mainly applying theories of geopolitics that I believe can be incredibly misleading. One of these is realism as advocated by john Mearsheimer. And in this video i would like to present you with some points arguing against the realist position on Ukraine.
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You might be interested in this video too: • The Ideology of Putin'...
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[@Kraut_the_Parrot]

Go ground.news/kraut to stay fully informed on breaking news as it’s happening around the world, compare coverage & see through media bias. Check it out for free or subscribe for unlimited access.

[@hunord.9903]

@@ground_news Thanks for setting up your company! The political bias meter is a great idea!

[@arpandey698]

What is your opinon on Napoleon.

[@chinesesparrows]

thanks for keeping it real not realism

[@ground_news]

@@hunord.9903 Thank you!

[@PawelTheShrubber]

How does this thing fare with local and national news? Im asking because you are Austrian, and as a Pole i was afraid it would only work with English-speaking news which are not that important to me.

[@nohrianscum9791]

51:25 "Islamism also refused to play poker." Well yeah gambling is haram

[@lexprontera8325]

😄

[@iskanderaga-ali3353]

They did however play opium

[@vondas1480]

@Elyas Theres no such thing as "muslim lands" there are Arab land's that muslim brought their disease to, glad the west is helping to cure us of that trash.

[@vondas1480]

@Elyas liberalism already demolished your pathetic stolen countries, why would i waste time humoring your childishness? Educate yourself and rejoin us atheist (or go to china and they have a great cure for muslim disease)

[@ruairidhlloyd282]

@Elyas Islam is false because Mohammed himself couldn't distinguish from the voice of Satan and the voice of God. He revealed the Satanic Verses to the Muslims and it took him months to realise that it was actually Satan that revealed it. Its pretty easy to debunk atheism but its impossible to prove that any religion which claims to speak for God is true. Therefore God might as well not exist as any attempt to know his will, via holy books is dumb as they are just man made constructions. The Qur'an which claims to be the literal word of God is full of inaccuracies. It claims the sun sets in a muddy pool 18:83-18:91. It claims there are 2 tribes called Majuj and Yajuj who are locked behind a huge wall, no wall or tribe has ever been found despite global mapping. It says that if you eat a specific type of date you will be immune to poison for a few days. Mohammed himself died after complications from poisoned food that a Jewish woman made for him. Mohammed himself wasn't a pious man he lied to his wives about cheating on them with sex slaves. He married his own adopted sons wife which was so scandalous to the Muslims at the time that he had to abolish adoption within Islam which is why Muslims to this day don't adopt kids as their own just foster them or keep them in Orphanages. Read the Wikipedia page, 'Criticism of Mohammed' for more evidence against Mohammed as a prophet and Islam as a true religion. Humans the world over suffer from Islam and its shariah rule, in Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi. Muslim majority states are in constant retrograde towards Islamism and innocent little girls who attend concerts in my country are blown up by Muslim terrorists. Islam is both false and dangerous to all human life and societies.

[@jamesscott500]

"Too lazy to read" someone took the "kraut is raising the attention span of a generation" to heart. Fantastic video man.

[@jasonbelstone3427]

Trying to raise my attention span is fascism! I will not stand it!

[@dumpster-kun7132]

After he got done talking about important figures in realism I thought the video was over but boy was I wrong. He made sit through a bit over 1/24 of the day

[@EdLemieux]

It's not "too lazy to read". It's "I learn a million times better when I listen and watch. Visual learning or audio learning is retained better. One of the reasons why I dropped out of college because I couldn't retain the information I was reading in textbooks.

[@robotkade9107]

Indeed

[@burtan2000]

@@EdLemieux Agreed! i used to think negatively when people would say they have trouble reading. I assumed they were just lying to themselves and in reality, they weren't insatiable readers. But as more people began to "read" via audio books, I realized it's perfectly reasonable. For example, dyslexia is all too real. One of my best friends (who'd found great success as a left-handed baseball pitcher) who I knew was somewhat well-read told me he was dyslexic. I later learned dyslexia is closely tied to left-handed and ambidextrous people. I eventually concluded that listening to a text and reading a text are really no different.

[@jonson856]

Update: Kissinger is dead

[@rreflexxive6770]

The wicked witch is dead

[@Leo-ok3uj]

LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[@GAarcher]

*Very dead, like a lot dead*

[@Lucasp110]

BAGEL! BAGEL!

[@Zetto129]

As a Slovak, my knife was opening in my pocket during the part about Chomsky's remarks. It is always a pleasure and a learning experience watching your videos.

[@randomphoenix20]

Could you explain what you meant by "my knife was opening in my pocket"? I never heard that idiom before.

[@Zetto129]

@@randomphoenix20 probably not an english one, more like direct translation of a slovak idiom. Means that i was pretty pissed off.

[@chiddleychidds4917]

@@randomphoenix20 it clearly means he was aroused

[@M16A1-nw4jy]

@@chiddleychidds4917 lmao

[@peccantis]

@@randomphoenix20 must mean the same as "my knife sheath was rattling"

[@Biedrik4]

As a Pole living in the USA, the scorn and contempt that western Marxists express towards us is not the only problem. In general all Russian sympathizers here, left and right wing, tend to view former communist nations as utterly lacking in agency in their own history. There is an implicit attitude that dictates that these countries are merely swept around by the influence of greater, more culturally relevant nations. No Ukrainian is capable of coming up with their own desires that run contrary to Russia without it being due to the influence of the West. Poland joined NATO because of NATO itself, and not forces that arose in Poland. The Baltics shake their fist at Moscow...for no real reason other than NATO expansion. It is an attitude seemingly founded in a disinterest in anything east of the Oder as an inferior part of Europe that simply doesn't matter. To these westerners we are a collective amorphous mass dismissed as just "eastern Europe", with no ideas, cultures, histories, or motives of our own. So it is easy to advocate for abandoning Ukraine. No unique self made thing will be destroyed in the process. Ukraine is but a blank sheet of paper with different colored lights projecting onto it.

[@user-yn6kw5dl8k]

"No Ukrainian is capable of coming up with their own desires that run contrary to Russia without it being due to the influence of the West." The idea is that any belief is not independent and caused by some influences. Pro-russian ukranians in this framework are too born from foreign influence, just Russian this time.

[@fahim-ev8qq]

Well that’s the view of the foreign policy establishment too, not just “western Marxists”. Ukraine is not getting American money because america is convinced of Ukrainian agency in decision-making, quite the opposite. Agency has to be an empirical phenomena not a normative pre-supposition. If ukraine conveniently always does whatever is in line with Washington, either miraculously it’s foreign policy converged with Washington’s precisely after the fall of the USSR, or Russia is right.

[@deriznohappehquite]

You don’t get it, the west twists their arm into joining by existing and being objectively better than the alternative, leading to others to want to join it. It isn’t fair. Stop being a westoid. Be a Russian poker chip.

[@boblee7200]

As an American, the reason there is an "implicit attitude that dictates that these countries are merely swept around by the influence of greater, more culturally relevant nations." in the US. Is because European countries with the possible exception the UK and the Swiss have been swept around by the influence of greater nations for the past 70 years. this is not just an attitude held toward eastern europe, but pretty much the whole continent. I will happily acknowledge that every European community both east and west is capable of "ideas, cultures, histories, or motives of our own", but the question is how many european communities is capable of defending their "ideas, cultures, histories, or motives of our own" ON THEIR OWN. A Ukrainian is perfectly capable of coming up with their own desires that run contrary to Russia without it being due to the influence of the West, But when Russian fully mobilizes and invades Ukraine, is that Ukrainian capable of defending Ukraine without American stinger missiles, or Abrams tanks, or American tax dollars.- its possible that due to post soviet corruption, and russian incompetence that the Ukrainians could defend with out Americans, that is not proven. Poland is perfect capable of joining NATO, and the Baltics can shake their fist at Moscow, but they were able to join and are able to shake their fists at Moscow, because should Moscow intervene, the Americans would spend tremendous amounts of American blood and American treasure defending Poles, and Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians. As an american i perfectly willing to admit that unique things will be destoyed, and ukraine is not a blank sheet of paper, but As a European, you need to justify why I should care about kiev or mariapol getting destoyed. i live pennsylvania, why should i care about freedom and democracy a place 6000 miles away.

[@angelikaskoroszyn8495]

@さとう あい At certain point many Western leftists learn how much of their knowledge is shaped by American propaganda. It's natural they want to free themselves from the mental prison. Sadly they sometimes end up falling for alternative propaganda sources It doesn't help that Soviets didn't have to make up things to make USA look bad. Sandwich propaganda is insidious. Two pieces of truth (USA bad, USA is a modern empire) and one piece of untruth (everything bad about USSR was made up by USA)

[@idkreally3594]

My favorite part is when kraut said its realism time and realized all over the place

[@hunord.9903]

Kid Named the video being longer than from the time it was posted.

[@Jobe-13]

Good one

[@Tmaget]

I'm about to realize

[@aliamar8344]

@@Tmaget I realised all over my bed

[@zocktropey9807]

Truly one of Krauts videos of all time

[@katamarankatamaranovich9986]

This video was very important for me to watch as a Ukrainian. People here often fail to understand why some western intellectuals are so... detached from reality. Misguided accusations of being paid or influenced by russia are often thrown around in such cases. "Why would a "civilized" member of western academia defend an imperial war of subjugation and conquest?"- we ask ourselves. It just doesn't compute for us. "Surely, those people are not dumb and understand that our struggle is important for both Europe and America for many reasons. They must be paid by damn ruskies to say this dumbassery!" But this video explains quite a lot, it all just makes sense now. I doubt you will ever read this comment, but still. Thank you.

[@robertdusseault5336]

There are so many uniformed people in the USA.. Many Americans think the world's problems are an ocean away and are not our problems. But those problems are our problems. Glory to Ukraine! - from a somewhat informed American.

[@jamescrawford4803]

I don't think the war your country is important for anyone outside of you country like Europe and America won't change one bit Europe might a little but America won't at all If you win or lose that conflict But for your sake I hope you and your people get out of it OK

[@PhilipLaLonde]

Sláva Ukrayíni!, Heróyam sláva! The world is with you.

[@eddifabricio3750]

The US has been imposing its liberal democratic system on other nations, but it itself is now pretty much an oligarchy. I would dare to say that the liberal democratic system it has imposed has brought much suffering and misery to Latin America, Africa, and many parts of Asia. Especially in Latin America, I have seen with my own eyes how the US influences, supports, finances, and downright overthrows leaders that are not of its liking, in blatant violation of its own beliefs; and the leaders the US likes are usually corrupt and inept. The US has acted and keeps acting like this the world over. So, not accepting that the US has played a HUGE role in the Ukraine conflict is naive at best.

[@KasumiRINA]

It's weird they call themselves"intellectuals" like, this isn't a job, it's like "influencer" except for boomers. Even worse when they call themselves "realist" without being remotely realistic. ​@@jamescrawford4803 this is wrong. It's the biggest war in Europe since WW2 that revealed major failures in foreign policy and entire safety . If Ukraine doesn't win, NATO is next. The russians won't stop unless we stop them. The russians don't care for Ukraine or need it, it's just seen as a stepping stone to conquest of Europe, which COMBINED has a smaller army than we, Ukrainians, destroyed already.

[@roland228]

That Physics Envy part is interesting. My brother's in economics (started off there) while I'm in physics (and stayed there) and he told me a joke he had heard while being educated, that an economist is generally a "failed physicist", someone who started off studying physics but couldn't handle the difficulty.

[@prkp7248]

The thing is that it is true, but it shouldn't be, because economy is social knowledge, not strict natural science. It is with great loss to economy and society that modern economy is dominated by number and equations that in the end don't mean anything, they are mearly just thesis without justification, not reality.

[@jhonklan3794]

Eh, I think economics is still a useful discpline. And its models are relatively robust. They just arent perfect since there are no laws of human natures, only tendencies. Plus microeconomics is mathematically robust. Like its essentially just mathematical proofs. Look up auction theory for instance.

[@WWFanatic0]

I think that's a gross oversimplification. As we joked when I was in university, I went for an econ degree but got tricked into a math degree. The part that I, and others in my field, get annoyed about is when people misinterpret and misapply what are models say. We know limitations exist, we account for them. It's why game theory (at least higher level) takes into account risk tolerance, information asymmetries, etc. It often feels like people took 100-200 level courses on it, heard assumptions like "perfect information" and "rational actors" and therefore concluded economists live in a fantasy world. Often times people misunderstand what is meant by these terms too. Rationality is a great one. To oversimplify, it means that people prefer good>neutral>bad in terms of outcomes. It means if they have the same cost and all else is equal, if you were to buy Coke over Pepsi it would be because you prefer Coke over Pepsi. That's more or less it. It's not that humans are hyperrational AI that never falter but that's what people often think it means. I challenge anyone to make a model of human behavior that doesn't have this assumption at its core. We start with simple models to teach the concept then get more complex. In the same way that first and second year physics vastly oversimplifies many if not most problems (air resistance, object shape, g=10, etc.) same too for lower level econ. We can't learn to sprint if we don't learn to run, walk, and crawl first. Imagine if someone took a year or two of physics and concluded that physicists are idiots because they assume spherical cows or that friction is usually ignored. Yes, hard sciences do have more predictive power by their nature, and social sciences are more about tendencies, but that doesn't mean they're not highly predictive and robust.

[@danielfield2570]

As a current Graduand waiting for my physics degree, I know all too many people who dropped out to study finance or economics. Couldn’t be more true. And tbh I don’t blame them, physics is solid. Not that economics isn’t useful though I do concede

[@Ohnothisisbad]

As someone in an economics PhD program, that isn't the way the joke goes at all. The joke is that economists wish the economic world was as concrete as the physical one. It's not about intelligence at all. Physics envy is about envying physical determinism. It's not about intelligence at all. Oh and by the way, a deeper interpretation of the joke is that ec9nomics is actually harder than physics in some real sense because of the lack of determinism and the amount of noise in the models. Of course, a physicist would tell the joke incorrectly. In general, academic fields are so highly specialized that it is exceedingly rare that someone would start with physics and end up in economics. Most economists start with economics, stats, mathematics, or some combination. I come from a mathematics and economics background, for example. I'd argue pure mathematics is harder than physics, although they are interrelated.

[@masscreationbroadcasts]

This video needs chapters. To be noted, I appreciate the return to old (pre 2019) Kraut visuals style every now and then. 2:16 Introduction 3:40 What is Realism 4:16 Thucydides and the Greek example for Realism. 5:56 Machiavelli 6:51 Napoleonic times and Metternich. 8:18 Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm (too many timestamps, not because they're related) 10:09 Myths about Realism - Realism is not an Instruction Manual (omg, Literally 1984) 10:50 Friend of the channel video recommendation. 11:14 Morgenthau's Realism 13:10 The Security Dylemma 13:44 The effects of Mongol conquests on China, centuries later - the changing of National Interest. 16:22 The failure of idealism and shifting spheres of influence 18:18 The Crisis of Modernity - Shared history inspires similar conclusions across worldviews. 19:56 Kant's Toward A Perpetual peace 20:23 Hegel and historicism - The original End of History 22:03 The crisis of Rationalism - in mathematics, in physics, in politics... 23:05 Husserl's Phenomenology 23:49 Rabelais quote - Coincidentally, since I've got top comment, I'm allowed to shill, the sentiment expressed in it is identical with my idea of a "Moral Dunning Krueger" which I shared on a stream on someone else's channel last year. 25:20 Zweig's work, The World of Yesterday 26:00 Different interpretations ideologies give to history (with sources) 28:35 The return of Morgenthau (in the video) and Realism in the Cold War 33:17 Kissinger and Realism (including his claims on philosophy) 35:23 Reagan and Realism (he wasn't), then Bush 37:10 Obama and Realism, then Trump 38:52 Realism today - the irrelevance of ideology and the national makeup. 41:34 European Realists (Mearsheimer isn't one) 43:06 Marxists were anti-Realists, and supporting it now is absurd. 44:35 Chomsky's dishonesty about Czech anti-Communist dissidents 47:54 Western Marxists have never forgiven Eastern Europeans for the fall of the Soviet Union. 49:59 Alexander Vondra quote 50:59 Kraut's Critiques of Realism Number 1 - Islamism's anti-nation mode of engagement 54:28 Number 2 - Self Fulfilling Prophecies 57:23 Metternich returns - Bayonet quote 59:39 Number 3 - The Death of Communism 1:02:21 Realist cope (up to WW1, but with NUKES) 1:05:03 Number 4 - The Empire's Missing Clothes (or justifications for self-rule over others) 1:10:13 The original (and non-insulting) Robber Barron title 1:11:31 A Chechnian prowerb explaining why the mountains of the Caucasus are white. 1:13:13 Number 5 - The Curse of Bismarck (he's increasingly only liked outside Germany, then Europe) 1:15:39 "Historical developments tie and weave into each other you can't just pick what you like and dislike as one would do at a salad bar" 1:16:01 Metternich's biggest failure 1:17:56 A new perspective on the Ukraine war - The Perspective of Internal Development 1:26:42 Eastern Europe is actually MORE Politically Developed than the West. So... ending with a bang. I hope you've enjoyed. I'll be back in future times of need.

[@idkreally3594]

Damn you fast

[@mr.fishmanman]

Thanks a Lot!

[@jayman1772]

yeah ty will actually really come back tmrw i hope you updated it then :P

[@chinesesparrows]

voting this up.

[@NightspeakerR]

I'll definitely come back!

[@AleksandarBosakov]

Edmund: You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two superblocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way there could never be a war. Baldrick: But this is a sort of a war, isn't it, sir? Edmund: Yes, that's right. You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan. George: What was that, sir? Edmund: It was bollocks.

[@tianwong152]

Well, absorbing all of Europe into a single block and relentlessly bullying everyone else worked fantastically well didn't it? Oh wait, what's going on in Ukraine? Not that I have any sympathy for you Europeans, that includes the Russians, you fully brought it upon yourselves and completely deserve every bit of harm this war is doing to your continent. All I'll be doing is getting my dim sum to watch the fireworks in total schadenfreude.

[@92Psyco]

I heard that the war started when someone called Archie Duke shot an ostrich because he was hungry

[@GegoXaren]

Black Adder the Fourth was such a great show.

[@92Psyco]

@@GegoXaren 100% agreed, but this scene about WWI is from blackadder goes fourth

[@GegoXaren]

@@92Psyco s/Third/Fourth/

[@RoberinoSERE]

At 62, with no formal university education and my limited IQ and a raging case of ADD, this video is both fascinating and somewhat over my knowledge deficient head, but none the less worth every minute of my limited attention span due to head aches and fidgety britches. Thank you.

[@craig5322]

This was my first exposure to your channel, and it really opened my mind. It challenged a lot of unchallenged ideas I held, and it was long overdue.

[@wublesmoop6125]

We in America did have oligarchs during the guilded age, we developed institutions like a free press to expose their excesses. The problem is, many of those institutions have become dominated by oligarchic interests. The struggle between the public and oligarchic interests isn't new to us, we just got complacent

[@genghiskhan5701]

The thing about I notice about America is how often it quickly it changes oligarchies in mere 50 years as a backlash to the old oligarchy. During British rule, you had the British noblility, Post Revolution, the local aristocracy in the form of Federalists, during Antebellum the Slave Owners, Guilded Age the aforementioned industrialists, the New Deal Bureacrats, the Mangerial Class during the 1960s to 2000s and finally the Tech Moguls and Financial CEOS of today.

[@andrewlechner6343]

@@genghiskhan5701 I wouldn't call them oligarchies, but yes, we change the national leadership classes (cultural, business, and political) pretty often. If the old one gets complacent, or the economic and political situation changes too much for them to adapt, they will get thrown out and replaced by a new and usually more competent one. The American political and economic system also ensures that the transitions between the leading classes aren't violent. Instead, they usually happen in the form of creative destruction, where the previous leaders are replaced over a matter of years by the young, who thanks to this nation's seeming historical bipolarism, are basically guaranteed to hate a great deal of everything their forefathers stood for. It's a weird system, but it has worked surprisingly well for the last two centuries, and almost always in spite of the current leadership classes rather than because of them. I have no doubt that it will remain that way for the foreseeable future.

[@glorioustigereye]

Major Business men like Jeff have bought up news papers in order to crush criticism of himself while Elon musk tried to take over twitter but no one is playing along. The reason youtube is sanitizing it's content to hell because of these advertisement companies that don't want to look bad in any way shape or form. There are currently multiple lawsuits headed for the Supreme Court on the subject of the Internet and soon 9 old men will decide what free speech look like in the future.

[@shahriyarhakhamanashiya4626]

@@andrewlechner6343 I wouldn't say "well", american living standards could clearly be better and its disastrous foreign policy was in part prompted by said elites (btw oligarchy simply means the elites are directly represented in institutions, the Bush family being presidents can be called an oligarchical rule considering their part in the oil business).

[@brochses80]

As a northern european, my understanding and perspective on the ''Us oligarchy'' is that the money into politics through legal (!) lobbying enterprises have deeply stagnated the contry's ability to innovate politically. Your institutions are under attack both ideologically and monetary self-interest. Like the free press as you mention (e.g. Fox cable news). Kraut showed the picture of Paul Manafort 8the campaign mnager for Trup) and that guy was heavvily involved in the implementation of US lobbying industry. Sorry for the rant.

[@juanfranciscovillarroelthu6876]

The worst thing that happen to Bismarck is that he lived long enough to realized where the things he did would end up. He predicted WWI almost to the day because he saw what the people that came after him where doing with the ideas he introduce.

[@starmaker75]

Well I think Bismarck realized that with the people in power are wihleam the second and the like where going to drive the empire in a trouble place, so when “ah shit, these people are going do a poor job and I’m partly to blame”.

[@MrMarinus18]

But I also think it should be considered just how quickly the Germany he spend decades building with tons of bloodshed collapsed and was crushed. While the German empire was a great nation it was a very fragile one.

[@kieferkarpfen6897]

@@MrMarinus18 I took all of the important world powers to defeat them and it was close.

[@proselytizingorthodoxpente8304]

@@kieferkarpfen6897 If Wilhelm had won, seems to me 'Realists' would have argued it was the allies who hadn't realized they had got themselves into a fight they couldn't win.

[@MrHamtits]

@@proselytizingorthodoxpente8304 what yo 'seem' to think is irrelevant. modern Realism was born out of what happened in the interwar period. it's not use in playing alternative history when it comes to this

[@SergeEfremov]

This video is a rare jewel. It's so unusual for someone from the west to be able to see so many nuances in the complicated topic of Russia-Ukraine war. So refreshing and educational.

[@sandwich5344]

Theres more if us here in Europe than you might think! After all, we may not be next-door neighbours in this great continent - but in a geopolitical context, we're hardly a border apart. I think most of the western misunderstanding is rather common amongst the same people that would chew on a turd without ever wondering why it tasted so shitty

[@johnirvine9942]

And you think you’d find more nuanced perspectives from people living under autocratic regimes that completely restrict the flow of information?

[@SergeEfremov]

​@@johnirvine9942 No, in my opinion it has more to do with the language barrier, the number of sources you have at your disposal and well, what I guess is the most important, the overall motivation to acquire the most nuanced outlook.

[@georgios_5342]

5:54 the most important part of the dialogue between the Athenians and the Melians was omitted. When the Melians told the Athenians that they should discuss with them as an equal because that was "just", the Athenians responded "no, justice doesn't mean everyone gets an equal say, it means that the strong pushes to gain what his strength allows him to, and the weak retreats to lose what his weakness forces him to"

[@SeruraRenge11]

I never got how the Spartans defeating the Athenians somehow proved the Athenians wrong in the end. It was still might makes right in the end, Sparta just wielded that might and chose not to be assholes when in the same situation the Athenians were with the Melians. Which really, tells me the message is just that maybe don't be a dick because you can't just assume that if you ever get conquered in turn, that you'll be lucky enough to have merciful conquerors.

[@maozedong537]

And as a result Athens would rise again and help sideline Sparta out of its short lived hegemony

[@georgios_5342]

@@SeruraRenge11 that was usually the pattern across history. This is why genocide was usually avoided in older times, because wars were more commonplace, and so countries which genocided others would be seen with much more hostility by their neighbors. Such is the case with the Assyrians as well. But in the modern day, wars are less common, so genocides are unfortunately incentivized, because whoever does them can usually also get away with them, due to the threat of nuclear annihilation. Such is the case with China's treatment of its minorities

[@SeruraRenge11]

@@georgios_5342 There's also the fact that China just doesn't see it as such. That's what it is, but to the Chinese this is something they've practiced since time immemorial with peoples in their border that don't live life the Han way, they call it Sinicization, which is a form of forced assimilation. Which I mean...I'm not willing to call that genocide if you moved to the country because you're expected to assimilate in a new land, but this is different, the Uighurs are native to the area, cultural erasure isn't the same when it's your home. Dev/ShortFatOtaku talked about it in his video on what it means to be indigenous and when he got to the Uighurs, he mentioned how China doesn't allow any indigenous culture that isn't Han, regardless of your ethnicity.

[@marekriha]

I Never comment under videos, but as a young Czech, it absolutely boggles my mind how a foreigner has learned so much about my country and understands the Czech point of view so well. I am refereng to the last part ofc. This is the level of knowledge I would expect from a 25-year-old university graduate, and even then the post-communist facts are not really well known. Amazing work, I couldn't help myself but to write this.

[@ondrejtetor959]

Jo kámo taky to nesmírně žeru. Naprosto se vyžívám ve srovnání s Maďarskem, nemůžu si pomoci. :D

[@marekriha]

@@ondrejtetor959 :D jako svých problémů máme taky spoustu ale když se člověk zamyslí, tak nikdo z bývalého východního bloku na tom lip neni.(Dobře možná Slovinsko o nějakých 5% hdp na hlavu xd).

[@ondrejtetor959]

@@marekriha No právě když se dívám dneska na situaci na Slovensku, Polsku s těma jejich soudama a Maďarskem s Orbanem tak máme ještě štěstí 😅

[@marekriha]

@@ondrejtetor959 Souhlas. A hlavně to konečně vypadá že už nikdo v ČR nezpochybní prozápadní směřování a evropskou integraci (Což sou pro mě zásadní věci). Vypadá to že konečně bude líp :D

[@ondrejtetor959]

@@marekriha Naprostý souhlas 👌

[@markmalnay7243]

As a Hungarian I’m very tired of seeing us as the bad example everywhere. But the comparison is apt and you’re sadly correct, great video.

[@wormwoodbecomedelphinus4131]

Unfortunately you're one of the European Nations most isolated in information - Hungarian is a contender for the most difficult european language to learn. Meaning there's fewer individuals who can read your articles or can understand your speeches, thus letting your corruption go unnoticed by the rest of Europe more than say, France and Germany.

[@scottwillie6389]

Hungary is actually seen as a model in much of the Western public. They are one of the few countries in Europe actually trying to address the problems destroying the West.

[@markmalnay7243]

@@scottwillie6389 that’s literally Orbán propaganda. We have basically no democratic institutions, free media and the country is getting swallowed up by oligarchs. Trust me you don’t want wherever you’re from to be like Hungary

[@zombiebrained]

Orban needs to be deposed before things can get better in Hungary

[@andriidiuh7826]

well Viktor Orbán is trash stop reelecting him

[@leaderofthebunch-deadbeat7716]

*Political Islamism disregards the idea of the modern nation state, yes, but not the idea of the state itself. Most of them ultimately have the common goal of creating some form of Pan-Islamic caliphate, which will not being very realistic (for now) such ab organization would certainly be a state, just an empire other than the modern notion of the Westphalian Sovereign Nation State, with Islamists largely disregard. And any fantatical state is obviously still an actor that interacts with its surroundings, even if it does not act a rationally due to it's idealism, the ideal in this case being religious fundamentalism. So no, it doesn't really disprove anything about the realist theory, it does still work without the nation state.

[@williammorris584]

Chomsky waves anything aside that interferes with his assertion that the US is the worst oppressor in history, and that Stalin was just a misunderstood idealist.

[@knpark2025]

In Korea there is an urban legend that says "those who get cursed a lot tend to live a lot longer (in defiance of everyone else's wishes)". Kissinger is about to be a centenarian this year. Yes, I googled his age. It's as if our myth is made just for his existance.

[@starmaker75]

Yeah I surprised this guy is still alive. I mean I guess he staying alive from all the souls he help killed.

[@joshuaminton7583]

how did he live longer than a monarch?!?!

[@relohtuhl1028]

That myth was based on existence of kissinger, he is the origin.

[@k.umquat8604]

@@starmaker75 He's like Voldemort

[@stefanodadamo6809]

The Kim's should be as immortal as Taoist sages, then. There's something amiss.

[@ayusa_7828]

My IR professor used to say "Realists are good at everything except predicting war, since most war in our history start by idealists." IMO this is probably a reason why a lot of realists has a shittiest takes on war.

[@TaiNguyen-in6xy]

What? Kissinger and Mearsheimer predicted and warned years ago that if they US tried to take Ukraine and the war with Russia would be inevitable. Years ago. They predicted it. Yet for their own interests, the US and gangs did it anyway.

[@ayusa_7828]

@@TaiNguyen-in6xy Because those two are very good realists and tbh anyone that follow a news everyday will know that war between them was bound to happened. Personally, I consider Kissinger to be more of a pragmatic/realpolitik kinda guy since pragmatism is neither idealist or realist exclusive, it was more about the end justifies the means. Also, now that the war broke out, Mearsheimer while say that it is the west fault, he wasn't completely against the intervention in Ukraine. In fact, he ranked it a second place in term of geopolitics strategy importance while the first one being China containment. P.S. I used to be one of those realist who predicted that Ukraine invasion will never happen and when it happened, that quote from my professor hit me like a fucking train.

[@TaiNguyen-in6xy]

@@ayusa_7828 I won't get too academic about the definition. Words can be deceptive, just like the Democratic Party in the US aren't really about democracy. People who followed the news already knew there is a huge chance war will happen. "Hollande confirms Merkel's remark Minsk agreements let Kiev build up military muscle." The higherup people already knew it years ago as well. I would consider myself a realist, but I dont really follow the tenets or textbook of the realism. lol Still it's much better than idealism in this 21st century.

[@ayusa_7828]

@@TaiNguyen-in6xy Well, start reading one so you will see that it is no better than idealism.

[@TaiNguyen-in6xy]

@@ayusa_7828 I did read Meisenheimer, and some of Kissinger, Brzezinski. For the most part, they are practical and what they said can still hold water till this day. Could you recommend some big-name realism in IR books that are no better than idealism? I'm curious.

[@Tacticaldoor]

watching your videos has saved me from the rabbit-hole of racism, specifically "The Myth of Racial Political Development" video was the turning point. i have been racist for so long but then i stumbled upon this channel. you together with a family friend in real life saved me by not being racist yourselves, i thought "i want these two to like me, but they would not like a racist. ehh, who cares." and didn't think much more of it until right now. i was deleting racist post on my social media and i wondered why i changed all of a sudden. i am forever grateful that you are not racist, and for unintentionally helping me.

[@zackwalker6775]

It is often a soft decline into bigotry when one is presented often with racial politics and talking points. A respectful and frank reminder of the absurdity of racism is some times needed, with it being far more powerful than any amount of screaming and brow beating. I found myself steadily growing more racist a while ago till I stumbled out of the political KZbin channels I frequented into the introspective and thoughtful creators. You are not alone in that feeling of realization.

[@marsar1775]

both of you are good people for this. it takes good character to not just realise your wrong, but work to change *and* not hide from your past in public. We are only human, but the upside of being human is the chance to try and fix our mistakes

[@bengoacher4455]

Racism is a learnt behavior based on environment and personal experiences. If you are brought up among racists and your experiences of different ethnic groups is based solely on news reports of rape, murder, theft etc then you will learn to believe that criminality is fundamental to a racial group. Spending any amount of time with people of an ethnic group that doesn't conform to your prejudices of what that ethnic group should be like instantly makes racism absurd and clearly flawed. This is very clearly shown in inclusive and non-racist societies like liberal america, the UK, and western Europe. In more racist societies like in the Middle East, East Asia, East Europe etc then it's not as easy to disprove race theory due to the institutional racism that severely limits opportunity for those ethnic groups. The more inclusive you build your society, the more opportunities ethnic groups have to dispel the prejudices against them, and the more likely that people learn how crazy racism is. It's the same to an extent with disabilities and homophobia. The more opportunities we give to disadvantaged groups, the more opportunities they have to disprove the racist prejudices against them. It's hard to claim that African Americans are inherently lazy when an African American became President. Whether you approve or disapprove of his policies, it is undeniable that Barack Obama was a very hard working and capable politician.

[@laonch6073]

@@bengoacher4455 yeah, but you forgot to mention that prejudice is a thing that EVERY single human being has. Racism is just done wrong, but racism is a correct thing that shouldn't be fought but rather thought. Let me explain: you can't expect people to drop their racism (and prejudices) like nothing, you get prejudices as you grow up based on your experiences. What should be thought is that racism SHOULDN'T prevent you from giving people the benefit of the doubt. I am a very racist person and I'm proud of it, yet, my best friend was a female muslim, brown and she was even an immigrant. I would have took a bullet for her, she was (and still is to be fair) an amazing person (sadly she moved to another country but we still hear eachother out from time to time), extremely smart, open minded and a pleasure to have around. Racism is not bad, but people should understand that racism should be a prejudice, a way of valuing people before getting to know them, a thing that shouldn't prevent you from giving them the benefit of the doubt. People who think racism is a fight and that should be destroyed, are just stupid and delusional on many levels. The core of racism is "prejudice" and you can't prevent people from having prejudices, it's literally impossible.

[@bengoacher4455]

@@laonch6073 You can't stop people from spotting trends in behavior and using those trends to determine that one group of people is inferior than another. true. But you can teach people that statistics lie and that we are individuals with our own agency and decision making skills. For example African Americans are more likely to commit violent crime in america. That's what the statistics say. But on an individual level every African American has the agency to decide if they are going to commit a violent crime or not. If you look at African Americans that live in wealthy neighbourhoods, that trend suddnely dissappears. Almost like when you remove the social and financial pressure to commit violent crimes, and replace it with social and financial pressure to study and work hard. The attitudes change. So it's not racism, it's social and financial pressure. Giving African Americans role models, giving them opportunities, giving them safe places to study, well funded schools etc. Suddenly you find yourself reversing the trend. Suddenly the "African Americans are criminals" prejudice many people hold becomes broken. Obviously this means getting tough on negative role models, as well as promoting positive ones. Getting tough on street gangs, getting tough on drug dealers, removing the pressures to get involved with crime, removing the belief that African Americans can only be successful if they are rappers or athletes. Because there are some truly awful African American role models being hailed as heroes in America, like athletes that abuse women, or rappers that smoke pot all day and have been associated with organised crime.

[@hellboundchaoscommand7567]

Update KISSINGER HAS FINALLY BITTEN THE DUST!

[@twelvecatsinatrenchcoat]

Regardless of politics you can always tell the good people from the bad people based on who celebrates other's deaths.

[@hellboundchaoscommand7567]

@@twelvecatsinatrenchcoat name me one person who didn’t celebrate Kissinger’s death when it first happened

[@twelvecatsinatrenchcoat]

​@@hellboundchaoscommand7567 Almost all of planet earth.

[@maxstep6390]

@@hellboundchaoscommand7567 pretty much no one did

[@alexandarvoncarsteinzarovi3723]

@@maxstep6390 I did and several friends in the USMC stationed here in Romania,

[@matthewshaw8122]

“He’s a thug, and a crook, and a liar, and a pseudo-intellectual and a murderer. All of those things are factually verifiable.” Christopher Hitchens on Kissinger

[@hassanjraidi6235]

What a load of cope

[@andresfelipeod6819]

and you´re right, and Hitchens too..... but... .but, in the case of Urkayne war, his point of view is right. made an agreement to not expand NATO at least 15 years. only de European Union and the Schengen space. and this can defund all the Russians preocupations. we can never forget that NATO exists, to point nukes from european coutntries against the enemies of America (only the Americant threats) because as we see in the conflict Spain-Morocco, or Turkey-Cyprus-Greece. the NATO never consider the necesities of another countries, only concerns when the enemy is a enemy of america.

[@freddy4603]

@@andresfelipeod6819 the way you say Ukraine explains your viewpoint and intentions better than any thing else you said or may say.

[@harshulbarooah6556]

@@freddy4603 I'm not saying they're right, but disregarding what they said on the basis of a misspelling makes you seem like a condescending dick and weakens your argument, even if you're right

[@NaviRyan]

@@andresfelipeod6819 I’ll describe Russia in the nicest way I can. It’s your idiot drunk father who beats you into becoming an idiot drunk drinking yourself into an early grave. America meanwhile is your idiot overseas friend who doesn’t understand your culture, but wants to hang out and party anyway. If this were the Cold War you’d expect the Soviet socialist satellite states to play both sides for decades/centuries. However, they know that Russia is an idiot drunk that if Russia regains hegemony over their country it’ll lead to nothing but ruin. So to these new countries they have 2 options die slowly drinking themselves to ruin same as USSR and now Russia, or 2 fight back because the only thing they’ve dreamed about for centuries is watching the idiot drunk stumble into an early grave.

[@tylerwheeling3060]

"Eastern Europe is not a window into a backward past. It is a window into the political struggles of our future." As an American, my hope is that these two sentences can be understood by our next election. It won't be, but I wish it were so.

[@csabaszabo6859]

that line got my tetion too, because it put into words what I recognized a few years ago: I grew up in Hungary in the 2000's and the poloitical divide here was so toxic comper to the western nation that many people here said that we should learn from the west about political culture in democracies. However during the 2010's the political culture of the western countries become more and more toxic like here and when the culture war started I may say even got worst then here.

[@buddermonger2000]

I think it's fundamentally a different situation enabled by the situation which was the transition to capitalism from communism via the breaking up of state industries. I think there's a very different direction than is seen in the west. The flaw he has made is assuming similar directions of political development in Eastern Europe as in Western Europe, despite the fact that both have had decently separate forms of development over time. I really wouldn't make this assumption and I think he's 100% made the same mistake of everyone else of seeing a trend line and assuming it goes on forever without looking at the fundamental processes which go into it.

[@whathell6t]

@@buddermonger2000 Well! Do you actually have citations in MLA or APA format to back your counterpoint?

[@user-qd8yy9lc4g]

If you want it to be understood, speak up.

[@mbaxter22]

What’s depressing about Ground News and other services like it, is that they will all fail because people don’t really want unbiased news. They want to live in their own bubble.

[@terdragontra8900]

they absolutely won't be the #1 source of news in the near future, but they wont "fail", their niche is very real

[@gabrielllave2072]

All I’m going to say is that, as an American that hates all the cynicism in my country about Ukraine, am glad to see that other people share my views on the dangers of giving up on them. Glad to have found your videos Kraut

[@Jokkkkke]

Speaking as someone with a degree in International Relations and history, I think you do a very good job outlining realism, especially for a KZbin video on a channel which is primarily concerned with history. I think you do miss some things, including some less fundamental assumptions of Morgenthau, but I wanted to highlight one important thing so that people may avoid any confusion: realism was originally meant to be a social scientific model of how international relations works, but as people studied it, it came to be reified in the practice of states by the statesmen who studied it in primarily American academia. In this sense, its not supposed to be a belief system but it became one over time

[@Lobsterwithinternet]

Kind of how Keynesian economics started off as a descriptive model of economic activities and was morphed into a prescriptive ideology that acts almost like a religion in the US?

[@Jokkkkke]

Sort of, although in realism’s case, global politics start to mirror what is said to be predicted by realism once you act with realist expectations in mind. That’s not the case with economics as far as I know: if you follow orthodox Keynesianism, you may eventually cause stagflation. Same thing applies neoliberalism though, although that in the end cause deflation. Post-keynesianism is where its at imo

[@MarcosElMalo2]

@@Lobsterwithinternet Has it? If it’s a religion, it seems overshadowed by the cult of libertarian capitalism. I always thought Keynes’ model was more akin to the description of a combustion engine to guide the mechanics, the big difference being that the mechanisms of capital markets are much more complicated than the purely mechanical engine. But if you’ll entertain this analogy, the prescriptive debates seem to be between those who wish to maximize passenger capacity and those that want to go faster. Some want the engine to power a bus while others want a race car. Keynesian economics doesn’t seem to answer any philosophical questions about the uses of capitalism, making it a piss poor example of either a religion or a philosophy. At best it’s been a pretty good model for something that requires tinkering to operate.

[@jonahhudson2052]

I'm shocked no one mentioned Communism yet...

[@pizzacheeseman2854]

@@jonahhudson2052 because communism is a political ideology? And Marxism specifically doesn’t regard nation states as actors but classes so it’s apples and oranges

[@cauchemar3082]

40:44 Kraut, for us in eastern europe, these beliefs that we don't deserve self determination are not almost offensive. They are deeply offensive. Whenever someone talks about "NATO expansion" I get furious, because NATO did NOT expand into our borders. We invited western allies and we are glad they accepted us into their ranks

[@coops1992]

I would be speaking Russian and kissing Pootin's picture if not for NATO here lol

[@MrMarinus18]

As a western European I think Nato should be done away with and the EU should seek out relationships regardless of the US such as with the African union and other supernational organisations. Individual European nations should do the same, seeking out relationships actively with India, China, Vietnam and so on.

[@JackSparrow-vv2uq]

@@MrMarinus18 Eastern Europe doesnt trust Western Europeans as security allies, if you do away with NATO it will just be YOUR countries getting out, Eastern, Central and southern Europe will firmly stay in

[@jtgd]

@@MrMarinus18 what if that leads to different European spheres of influence?

[@tradingtips_tricks]

@@coops1992 thats a lie really? russians don't plan to come to your small country which is like 2km square they want peace

[@ves14]

Kraut, this is at least my second listen-through of the video but I have to tell you how much I love the “Get over it, grandpa” bit. It’s so widely applicable and so true. I say the same thing about cultural critics who endlessly profess the decline of music and culture.

[@rejvaik00]

Kraut if you're curious as to why the American perspective on Prussian militarism is different to what you experienced in Germany and why its seen more positively, it's because the US utilized many aspects and cultures of the Prussian style during it's war for independence from Britain I'm not pulling your leg either, the fledgling new Continental Congress utilized the services of the man called Baron von Steuben, a nobleman from Prussia, who brought with him the teachings of the Prussian military and turned the American continental army into a more effective and disciplined fighting force. He even started many military traditions that the US military as a whole still does to this day, such as drill. And he literally wrote the very first drill manual for the United States, and is called the father of the United States Army He even has his own city in New York state named after him, that's how much of a role he had

[@SireJaxs]

One thing that’s surprising is how we really learn about this German man. With anyone knowing the stereotype it’s very surprising and baron (along with Lafayette) are the two foreigners always mentioned and credited for helping George Washington win the war for independence (along with the French armies and French navy with Rochambeau)

[@jeffersonclippership2588]

Well that and cause Americans think militarism is cool

[@ondrejtetor959]

As a Czech i realy enjoy this video. We came long way since communism and your comparison with Hungary was top notch. Your takes are as always on point.

[@Kraut_the_Parrot]

Děkuji. Přeji vám krásný víkend. 🙂

[@davidperin9938]

I wonder where do you put yourself on the political spectrum. I am ideologically socialist, but pragmatically a social Democrat. For context I am from the USA.

[@ondrejtetor959]

@@davidperin9938 I would put myself on centre right, and pro-eurofederalism.

[@fixpontt]

and the situation here in Hungary is even worse (financially) and more tragic (intellectually and especially morally) than the video depicts, the complete destruction of the state institutions and a ruthless sweep of any public intellectualist movements, open discuss and debate, the complete misuse of the media will get into history books as one of the damaging era (in peace time) of this country

[@ondrejtetor959]

@@fixpontt Hope things get better in your country but recently im starting to think that It will not happen any time soon. Also not suppriesed that Jonh Mearsheimer had his prezentation in Hungary and people loved it. Quite sad he supports Orban foreign policies.

[@johntheamazing9337]

I realised something about this on rewatch. A lot of entry level information (such as youtube videos or tiktoks) either take a realist approach or have realist influence. This is especially prevalent in modern events where they talk of 'spheres of influence' to dumb down large webs of alliances and cultural ties.

[@Game_Hero]

I felt that with Second Thought, personally.

[@shiveshsingh3169]

The problem with 'TikToks' and other such short form content is that it REALLY wants you to be quick and bite-sized in your approach towards information, and what promotes such an approach better than Realism? It is extremely easy to give a cause-effect sort of narrative to your content which Realism promotes, while any talk of ideology and motivations driving events would require a whole lot more in depth understanding and information, (like how Kraut takes almost an hour to explain the _ideology_ of realism to any justifiable degree), and hence it produces the said bias. Another reason is people being simpletons who look for, and understand, simpler relations better than nuanced, complex ones.

[@hemanthnair1290]

Realism also kind of lends itself to the vulgar conspiracism that's kind of the default way of thinking about politics and society online since the advent of social media.

[@user-yn6kw5dl8k]

Kraut himself uses term sphere of influence in his videos, their existence is not realism idea, but fact.

[@Asidders]

Realism dominates IR theory and political science as well. At least in Western Europe.

[@f4ust85]

Poker chips of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but a poker game.

[@arnold3768]

Bismarck is praised because after the unification he tried his best to maintain the peace unlike Wilhelm. The two quarreled over everything tbf...

[@Crambeu]

Yes exactly, I don't think he was disastrous

[@azravalencia4577]

this is the exact my comment for Kraut. It seems he's few too Harsh to Bismarck. Eventhough he's one of the implementor of Realpolitik, but he knew the boundaries. Although, the damage itself is already done...

[@frenzalrhomb6919]

If Kissinger's an example of a "Realist," then I'd be more than just "happy" to be in a Society run by a group of out and out "fantasist".

[@Symphonicrockfran]

Even hell is horrified by Kissinger. That's the reason why he is still here

[@frenzalrhomb6919]

@@Symphonicrockfran Hahaha, Heaven won't have him, and Hell is afraid that he'll take over!!

[@trillionbones89]

He is also not that competent, hence the resorting to war crimes and still losing wars. People who take his words seriously, shouldn't be taken seriously.

[@InDefenceOfSavarkar]

Kissinger is not a realist he is a racist . His foreign policy towards India and Bengladesh shows that his racist views are quite well known. He predicted that Bengladesh will fail and Pakistan suceed ... Well we all know whats the situation

[@Josh-oj9mm]

HEARTBREAKING: Henry Kissinger found alive in his apartment at 99

[@danielsimon4678]

Great video, thank you! I must say as a Hungarian, my blood was boiling when you spoke about Hungarian systematic corruption... BECAUSE you are so right, and still so few Hungarians chose to see it. I know it boils down to the almost total ownership of the media, especially rural media, but heck. After 40 years of corrupt opression, people really should bloody know better. To other Hungarian viewers, O1G!

[@masscreationbroadcasts]

I still have that lingering disappointment that my suggestion for the title when it was in drafting stage got ignored. It's more click bait-y like this (I forgot my suggestion), so I guess it was worth it.

[@sempressfi]

Second generation American Hungarian and while we no longer have any ties other than heritage and last name to Hungary, I keep up with what's going on there and cherish the recipes that have been passed down. It's been very frustrating and disheartening to watch Orban and fidesz rise to and keep power. Then seeing the GOP here embrace him, tucker Carlson go over there... yeah it has been infuriating to watch. When i make gulyás I have to be careful not to think about him or I start chopping vegetables angrily and carrots go flying 😆 I don't have any words of wisdom or advice other than staying aware and raising awareness but I am here in solidarity from the US 🇺🇲❤️🇭🇺

[@tianwong152]

If anything, systematic corruption is committed by British, German, Danish and French companies looting Hungarian resources. Orban is simply putting a stop to it by putting his friends in charge of his nation's assets instead of German and French CEOs and gets smeared by multinational corporate controlled media because he refuses to allow his national resources and assets to be looted.

[@danielsimon4678]

@@sempressfi thank you mate, and thank you for making me laugh with the Gulyás pun. :)

[@heb-agar6119]

As a Hungarian myself i came back after my studies in Austria and Switzerland to my beloved country after 7 years and the political state is still depressing. I'm trying to be positive but it is hard. Sadly Orbán's plan was genius and it is hard to see through it specially, if you got raised in this country. Other european members should learn the ways he became and stayed on power to avoid this chatastrophy. For the curious people still reading i can explain what my thinking is.10s of years ago there was our prev president "Gyurcsány", he was horrible and he was open about being horrible admitting literally crimes he did during his presidency. The election came and people elected Fidesz (Orbán) who swore to the people that Gyúrcsány will pay for his actions(this never happened of course). The catch is that they are friends who studied in the same soviet backed school. Of course if things got better in a country the people will feel happy, but in reality the political state became bad from awful. Gyurcsány is still seen in the opposition against Fidesz just to demonstrate for Orbán that how bad Gyurcsány was and remind people to avoid him and vote for Fidesz because it is a safe choice. Of course now all the media is controlled by Fidesz so there is no escape from the brainwashing. Young adults need to lie to their grandparents who they voted for otherwise family is over. Still to this day i hear people say "Fidesz is still better than Gyurcsány" after almost 20 years. Of course it is much more indept and this topic deserves a video Imo.

[@Zimba027]

Hey, I really love what you do. I think you bring an element of storytelling and unilateral discussion that is really underrated and I would argue unmatched in terms of content around geopolitics and history. I've recently subscribed to Nebula and was surprised you weren't there. Is there a reason? Just curious. Love your content.

[@nickhanlon9331]

A realization came to me when I was watching, of all things, Eurovision. Tatu were a Russian group and they were competing in one of the Baltic states. The entire stadium booed them outright. That told me the ill feeling was still there en masse. You just don't fix that overnight.

[@ragalyiakos]

I think the even funnier part of that story is the fact that Eurovision all but outright banned Tatu from doing anything even remotely lesbian on stage (which the band often did), to the full and ardent support of western pundits and publications, only for them to both pretend that never happened and position themselves as the big defenders and supporters of queer rights against the bigoted Russia less than a decade later. (This is not to say that the Russian government isnt homophobic, IT IS, i just find the hypocrisy funny)

[@joeyjojojrshabadoo7462]

​@@ragalyiakosYeah I'm pretty sure that was more about the controversy of TATU than Russia, Previous Eurovision if the Belter Nations had any hostility they rightfully kept off stage.

[@konnosx1213]

only 7 mins in and one of the funniest things about the Peloponesian war is that Athens who justified the destruction of Melos with the phrase "Justice only exists between the strong" ended up losing the war

[@ethank5059]

And one of the reasons Sparta was able to win was because they were better at making alliances with other city states who (for obvious reasons) didn’t want to side with Athens.

[@shahriyarhakhamanashiya4626]

@@ethank5059 yeah, but they also got Achaemenid help which was instrumental in winning the naval war. As the athenians said "Justice only exists between the strong" and they were weak compared to the Achaemenids... They had forgotten that the only thing negating said weakness was greek unity...

[@h4xorzist]

I feel like Realists are so obsessed with the mechanics of the game that they forget that a game is played by players and not by itself.

[@Game_Hero]

This

[@kjj26k]

Damn, I feel like that could apply to a lot of videogame developers too. Also, I feel like this can happen a lot with companies. They're so focus on keeping the numbers right they forget (unintentionally or otherwise) that some of those numbers represent people.

[@honkhonk8009]

Unironically why Trump was elected. Bush era Realists couldnt comprehend the fact that Trump was elected tbh. People were tired of being called imperialists and people wanted their nation to have an actual ideological soul and sense of self, rather than being some vessel of pseudo-modernity.

[@1mol831]

@@Game_Herothis.play();

[@G.A.C_Preserve]

"You don't change the game, the game change you" "You can pick the game, But you cannot change the rules"

[@sodajerker3161]

Good afternoon Kraut. My name is Luis and I´m a 17 year-old Spaniard who has been watching your videos for the past 3 years. You are probably one of my most watched youtubers overall (I rewatch videos to make sure I gather everything you say properly so as not to misinform other people when I talk about such topics) and I´m always extremely enthused when you publish a video. I know you´re probably very busy at the moment so I don´t want to waste your time, but I was hoping you could help me find the answers to a question I have been having lately. First a bit of context: I´m part of the Spanish royal family (my father is the current king´s cousin, but my branch of the family is not even close to royal status. Our position is quite interesting given that we are part of the family and celebrate certain ocassions with them, as any family would do, but we get the full benefits of anonimity), but I´m also a staunch social democrat, progressivist, and enviromentalist, which contradicts a few of the values exposed by my dad´s side and makes me a "black sheep" politically in that side of the family. On the other hand, my mum´s side has always been leftist, even during the dictatorship, which is what all this is centered around. See, here in Spain there´s a fear generally between the center and left political spectrum because of Vox and their massive popularity among all age brackets, with even more young supporters. Individuals from my generation I believe don´t fully understand the impact Franco had in all aspects of our society , and I believe this is having a massive impact on the far-right´s rise in Spain, involving a sort of personality cult around the dead "dictador". ¿Where could I discuss such a topic and who should I contact? I know this is a very multifaceted issue and that the information may be spread out, but it is an issue that I always find my way to discuss in almost every political conversation I have with some hard right-leaning friends of mine.

[@isaac3140]

Bumping this

[@theunknownpersonism]

Are you related to the Viscount of La Torre? Given your age and relation, that's my guess. Though your name never appeared on Wikipedia.

[@sodajerker3161]

@@theunknownpersonism Yes indeed. He´s my grandpa, Luis Gómez-Acebo, who married the Infanta Pilar de Borbón (grandma)

[@theunknownpersonism]

As for discussion about Franco, I guess you can talk to your elders who lived through his regime and even better to those who have experience fighting for the Nationalist during the Spanish Civil War.

[@martonk]

As an economist (with a distinct Austrian bend) I was really glad that you showed me how physics envy or, as Hayek called it, "scientism" is applied on the theory of diplomacy under the name of "Realism". Your channel is amazing, please give us more videos

[@deponensvogel7261]

The Austrian and Hayekian bend with its stress on theory is dangerous, though. It's most important for economists to understand the limitations of their discipline as a social science. However, this only means that it is not opportune for economists to search for and envision mathematical economic laws and to think this will do the trick. It does _not_ mean they should abolish the empirical aspect and stop to care about predictive theory; that's the only way to do science.

[@martonk]

@@deponensvogel7261 I agree, and if you look at the Hayekian wing you will find that empirical research is held in high esteem. People like Peter Boettke or Lawrence White would agree. Hayek himself was the person to introduce time series analysis to Austria. It is only the anarchist wing that refuses it. Empirical analysis is understood by Hayekians as a means to structure historical evidence. And I greatly welcome the way the modern mainstream flatly rejects the ridiculous positivism of Friedman who imagined that empirical data can ever be used to verify theories. I in fact think empirical research is again a field where Austrians won a silent victory. Noone would today claim that theory is not ESSENTIALLY a prioristic and that empirics is not ESSENTIALLY dependent on these theories.

[@bigsmilebobby]

Trickletard economist

[@StheSharknl]

A fellow Austrian, hoesa! The only school that saw the 2008 GFC and the current hyperinflation coming.

[@martonk]

@@bigsmilebobby ad-hominemtard. No economist ever used the phrase “trickle down economics”.

[@537monster]

As an international relations student just finishing up their bachelors, your description of realism was very on-point, and honestly much better than any essay I have personally written. My only regret is that you made this video now, and since I would have loved to have plagiarized your work prior to me graduating.

[@jeremias-serus]

Their? You don’t know your own sex?

[@cowgirltheworld]

THIS IS SO FUNNY

[@notmyself2533]

Ha I am still in school I will do that

[@notmyself2533]

Or chatgtp

[@PancakeProduct]

I enjoyed all of it until he arrived at Prussia. Were the German people to never unite and remain stateless next to actual, hostile empires?

[@icecoldpolitics8890]

When I took a course on conflict dynamics and international politics my professor rejected Realism declaring it as an ideology which ignores all ideology that involves international politics. He stated that even in a rules based society like the EU that Realism doesn’t think of these things as counter to its beliefs. Therefore Realism is a poor belief system since it cannot in the eyes of realists be disproven despite its flaws. This professor also wrote in our university paper a month before the war in Ukraine broke out that war was inevitable due to the mechanics of cost versus power and the information gap bias. Basically that Russia was misled on how strong it was compared to the west and this led Russia to believe that rather than backing down and negotiate as is normal response when all information is present clear, Russia did not understand the consequences before they became acute and therefore cannot change course. I found it astounding when I read this because it was the same conclusion I came too when applying everything I knew about Russia and using his lessons on Game theory and power dynamics. Meanwhile many people were in disbelief that Russia would make such a decision in the EU believing that Russia was somehow also a believer in the rules based order of the World.

[@Fractured_Unity]

I agree wholeheartedly with you and your professor’s take. I find realism so myopic and reductionist. What power means is different depending on your ideology. It is impossible to separate ideology from any motive or action. No one does anything just for power’s sake, but for what power can acquire. What you wish to use your power for is ideologically based. What gives realists any evidence that any action is done simply for power’s sake? Humans are more complicated psychologically than that

[@icecoldpolitics8890]

@@Fractured_Unity even Putins actions in Ukraine are motivated by more than simple great power dynamics. The ideology of Putins Russia by Kraut is a great highlight of that.

[@stekra3159]

We have a tendency to assume that others are like us.

[@ethank5059]

Every self described realist I’ve met seems to have this belief that Realism explains all and can never be wrong. One of the “many” failures of realism is to explain why some countries refuse to step into the great power/expansionist mindset. Japan has a large population and is the third biggest economy in the world and yet after the fall of the USSR they didn’t remilitarize or try to carve out their own sphere as realist theory would have dictated. Neither did Germany after reunification. If the realists are right where is the modern Japanese and German militant empires?

[@icecoldpolitics8890]

@@ethank5059 realists would argue the US is using them as puppets or as Kraut puts it Poker chips. That those countries are in the US sphere of influence.

[@dietwald]

As a life-long advocate of Realist analysis, I support this message. I still think that Realism is a very powerful analytical tool any serious foreign policy analyst should know how to use. Realist analysis can help identify practical limits to foreign policy, but within those limits there is a lot of scope for foreign policy based on ideology.

[@KasumiRINA]

Every single person calling itself "realist" was always spewing most unrealistic, cope-filled spray of undiluted diarrhea that I don't think they know what "reality" means.

[@fibonacci4919]

Kraut is saying that Mearsheimer is an American realist and seas Europe as a poker chip, then he himself points out that Mearsheimer proposed one point in time to place nuclear weapons in Germany and France not only that he proposed Ukraine to keep their nuclear arsenal. Now in a Realist view power matters, so when you give nuclear weapons to a country you're empowering it this is direct contradiction with his argument that Mearsheimer only sees Europe as a poker chip. Also, the point that Kissinger was wrong about the Soviets living for centuries therefore realism is wrong is like saying Fukuyama was wrong in the end of history, so Liberalism is wrong it's a non-argument. I don't see also how you can mix Islamism and use it as an argument against realism also it's not like all Muslims are in one big Muslim country they have nation states also Saudi Arabia is fighting Yemen all the time Turkey is also trying to prevent Kurds to gain autonomy, so Islam is not some exception.

[@memecliparchives2254]

Kraut's point of Islam being a counter to realism essentially describes that it goes beyond state borders and does not necessarily end because a nation state can put its foot down and control it. Case in point: None of them had or are still struggling with it except maybe Azerbaijan and to lesser extents, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Turkey constantly attempted to be a secular nation since Attaturk. But look where it is now with Erdoğan? Iran used to be a secular nation state, look where it is now? Lebanon used to be a nation state with diverse groups of religious faiths, look where it is now with Hezbollah? Lets even consider non state actors especially the Islamic State. They don't care about borders, nations or states. All they care about is their obscene radical extremist interpretations of Islam, and that they could take over all current Muslim majority lands and then follow to dominate the entire world next. The fact that you stated that Turkey are fighting the Kurds or Saudi Arabia fighting Yemen despite being all of them are Islamic countries of proves Kraut's point. Islam goes beyond borders and at certain times, against itself. Saudi Arabia and Iran are Cold War esque rivals. Almost all other nation states and even non state groups in the middle east are being used as "poker chips" against one another, for better or for worse further spiraling the regional conflict out of control even further.

[@davidperin9938]

You miss the point about the nuclear weapons for Germany. The point was to have Europe divided against itself so that America can then play arbiter facilitating an American sphere of influence over Europe.

[@atypicalpinetree4212]

Seeing your monetization status is depressing. You put so much work into your videos and make such high-quality content that you deserve an actual wage at this point.

[@AnimatedStoriesWorldwide]

Then again he promised a link to the melian dialogue and failed to deliver so that he could monetize his reading of it. Talk about realism...

[@nelsonndahiro6115]

Why does KZbin demonetize this type of content?

[@QWERTY-gp8fd]

@@nelsonndahiro6115 nobody knows. anyone who says they know is just capping

[@loveitorhateit127]

@@XenonSCRB he deserves a wage from KZbin tbh

[@Septimus_ii]

To the best of my limited knowledge, he earns enough. KZbin ad revenue shoudl be one of the contributors to that, but unfortunately it isn't and that's unlikely to change. Sponsorship and direct donations are always a more secure source of income anyway

[@calin6327]

As a Czech student of IR, I can't thank you enough for your support.

[@ondrejtetor959]

Naprostý souhlas 👌

[@Dan-wn3mo]

im a Ukrainian studying political science in the US and I am so glad to have found this video. Studying realism is part of my syllabus and I have found this ideology increasingly frustrating- especially since we do not deconstruct it, particularly as it applies to the current Russian Ukrainian war. My professor makes many realist analysis of the war as a way to make us understand the realist viewpoint, but, if such analysis are so weak and frankly useless, I do not see why we continue to justify or minimize the full extent of Russian unjustified cruelty.

[@marceldavis5600]

realism is not an ideology. It is a theory or a theoratical framework or method to view and understand international relations and conflicts.

[@Hangetsuu]

This has been a most interesting and informative video - thank you for exploring this subject so in-depth. I enjoyed having my perspective expanded on things so far idly pondered, as so many of your videos have done. Your stated ethics are also appreciated. (It's also a bit nice to have a creator from around once-my part of the world put together such *chef's kiss* quality videos.) I do wonder if an aspect of realism might include a branch seeking to account for its potential failure, the state of the world that might come to be through it and what some viable exit strategies into desirable end states might look like. Or was/is it truly so blindly confident in its predictive power? (Or, dare I say, an almost _ideologically_ driven adherence to itself)?

[@LotharTheFellhanded]

I feel like the simplest way to pokes hole in realism is “How did you get a sphere of influence first?”

[@hoolio5659]

I’m not sure that’s a good point. “Great powers” are always relative, could you elaborate?

[@relohtuhl1028]

@@hoolio5659 If they are always relative why should one respect ones sphere of influence? Since they change, so called spheares of influence change to. There is no point in respecting position of great power since it's going to change anyway

[@pauls6425]

Thats not a critique. Kraut doesnt understand that there are different schools of Realism. What he seems to criticise is Defensive Realism. It was the Realists who were giving concerns about the post-Soviet region. Their predictions during the 90s was that there will be a war between Ukraine and Russia while nutters like Huntington doesnt.

[@LotharTheFellhanded]

@@hoolio5659 Well, that’s also a part of it. What’s a great power defined as? As we have seen in modern industry, if Taiwan Semi Conductor Manufacturing cut you off, you’d be pretty fucked trying to make anything high tech. If Saudi Arabia stopped selling oil, there would be chaos in the oil market. Those aren’t great powers but their countries can wield incredible power when doing so deftly. Germany and France don’t seem like great powers anymore but they lead in the EU, so if they act with EU support, suddenly they are a great power. The basic idea of great powers have spheres of influence and you shouldn’t fuck around in rival powers’ spheres is inherently nonsensical. Because while many established nations have traditional spheres of influence, those spheres are always changing. Nobody wants to be a vassal, and great powers do nothing but fuck with each other and their spheres. Them doing that IS the Great Game the realists think they’re so good at. They just arbitrary draw a line in history and geography and say “that’s the sphere of influence”. But wars and intrigue and economics are how spheres are created and broken and changed.

[@LotharTheFellhanded]

@@relohtuhl1028 the more I’m thinking about it, spheres of influence is such a bullshit idea. What the users want it to mean is “my empire, but I let the locals pretend to have independence.” There are states who have that, but most of the time the actual people in that sphere would fight you to the last fucking child to stay free, as we see in Ukraine. It’s such a fucking imperialist idea. It’s a truly disgusting way to talk about people and completely strips them of their agency. Fuck the Realists.

[@BuenoSuertes]

There's something to be said for East Asian pragmatism too. For instance, take the case of Lee Kuan Yew, perhaps overused as an example but still relevant, I feel. When he found himself involuntarily head of an independent Singapore, one of the first things he decided to do was to gain influence in the United States. Several years earlier, the CIA had apparently plotted to overthrow him. Lee was determined to get on the right side of the American establishment. By his own account, what he did next was unprecedented. He went to Harvard and Washington DC for an extended bespoke fellowship as a sitting head of government. He was going to engage with the Americans not as a supplicant dictator from a banana republic, but as an intellectual keen to absorb ideas. The move paid off spectacularly. In a few short years the American political establishment came to respect Lee as the voice of Asia. Access to American capital and technology enabled Singapore to race ahead of its neighbours in the development game. I mention this because it's an example of the blind spot that small nations present to big powers. Washington thought Lee was a commie (he was probably just using them rather than being one of them). Lee then exercised his agency to not only save himself from a nasty end at the hands of 1960s CIA, but also to harness American power and wealth without destroying Singapore in the process. Many wannabe authoritarians say they will be the next Lee Kuan Yew but most will end up being the opposite.

[@pdstor]

I know, he forgot to manufacture consent for the upcoming Pacific theatre of WW3.

[@danielsurvivor1372]

So you saying he was the only Chad authoritarian?

[@RoberinoSERE]

A brilliant man as your analysis points out eloquently. Singapore is a spectacular little nation state surrounded by enemies on all sides and has become the quintessential porcupine to any would be conquerers. Authoritarianism applied correctly is a beautiful thing much like the Kingdom of Christ to come.

[@xBINARYGODx]

interesting post with now garbage replies

[@seanj4119]

Singapore is a special case where geography forced an authoritarian to play nice. Dictatorships normally keep themselves funded by aggressively exploiting resources low on the value-added scale (farmland, oil, minerals, uneducated labor pool, etc) and having the elites pocket the profits. Singapore has literally nothing to exploit except a tiny, demographically stagnant population. The best way to squeeze profit out of that is to make the population pool as productive as possible through education, high value-added industries, social welfare policies, rule of law, and basic freedoms.

[@ewanherbert3402]

My takeaway from this is that we've been letting tragic JRPG villains guide our public discourse since the end of WW2...

[@whaerf]

Your comment sections are always fascinating I love that this channel brings together so many people from so many nations keep it up fr 🇨🇦❤️

[@Jargalhurts]

Absolute banger of a video. As a Mongolian who lives in a country sieged by two authoritarian great powers who both have an unspoken desire to claim us as their poker chip and see our liberal form of government as a headache worth atleast Finlandizing if not overthrowing, it is quite amazing that Mongolia's internal pro-democratic political consensus has managed to survive for these last 33 years. Mongolia has mostly been managing to preserve its democratic structure and delay its political assimilation into either the Russosphere or the Sinosphere by playing the interests of one off the other, while also trying to bring in third-parties like Japan, America, Canada and India into the situation to further obfuscate attempts of full political subjugation. This has been at the expense of being excluded from many of the political outreach, economic support or regional co-operation attempts that both Russia and China endeavor on for other states of their periphery. Sadly however, the modern Mongolian political consensus of playing off Russia and China against each other is currently falling apart due to the extreme likelihood of Putin's Russia digging its grave so deeply and becoming so isolated from Western economies that it becomes an entirely Chinese-dependent dictatorship, effectively making Mongolia an enclave in a wholly Sinospheric neighborhood. We have been in a slow boiling pot situation due to the extreme socioeconomic destabilization caused by both COVID and Putin's invasion having affected Mongolia just as immensely as the sanctions and lockdowns affected our neighbors, and now there is a far greater political polarization in the country over the question of favoring security and stability over freedom and civil society. Our state is slowly testing the waters of overreaching its power to see what they could get away with and it has been depressing to see during this time of current and imminent crisis. While the most egregious of attempts to restrict political freedoms have been blockaded and delayed (a social media censorship law passed by Parliament was vetoed by the President this year), I fear it is only a matter of time, especially if Russia itself falls squarely and inescapably as China's own Belarus. So yes, I want to see the aberrations of political realism justifying imperialism come to an end. I want to see these Carl Schmitt-loving caesarist dictatorships in both Russia and China come to an end. I would daresay even desire a newly reformed Russian democratic state to become an EU member so our northern neighbor may finally stop being a channel for irredentist interests, and become a conduit for something more idealistic. Because there is a civil society here, there is a Gesellschaft here. And it would be the greatest waste to surrender all of that just because of some ephemeral irrationality of realist political compromise. Mongolia as a society has yet to choose between the Ukrainian oligarch-public dichotomy or the Russian oligarch-strongman dichotomy, both possibilities exist with equal chances at this moment. And we continue to hold the line. For how long? I do not know.

[@bidenator9760]

Really strong analysis. Here in the US, realist thought is definitely preventing us from tapping in to what should be a deeper relationship with Mongolia. Best wishes.

[@benismann]

dont u have like 70% of ur trade with china tho?

[@Jargalhurts]

@@benismann Yes. Mongolia had kept to a sort of 70-70 interdependence tactic with both China and Russia. China takes in 70% of our exports, yes. But Russia is also responsible for 70% of our energy imports. This sort of mutual co-dependence on both regimes allowed Mongolia a plausible deniability in refusing even closer political-economic integration and coercion from both states. When China tries to coerce us into a certain action with their trade leverage, we simply pretend Russia already coerced us on that matter into something more in line with Russian interests through its energy leverage. When Russia tries to coerce us with their energy leverage, we pretend China coerced us into something else they wanted regarding it already. And since Russia and China are regimes in only a marriage of convenience, while also being in direct conflict of interest over hegemony in Central Asia, they are naturally inclined to distrust each other when one tells the other they did not attempt to coerce Mongolia. We simply tell them to talk it out with themselves on what to do with Mongolia, and they have so far never reached an answer. That was how we kept a degree of political independence over three decades, and that status quo is also under threat with Russia now becoming more and more of a junior partner to Chinese interests.

[@pogo8050]

Sounds like you guys need Chingis back

[@gloverfox9135]

Weren’t you guys doing the same to the Russians and the Chinese in the 1200s when the mongols subjected them into the empire? Sounds like it’s just Russia and China getting the mongols back for that now

[@greenmaker7065]

Your take on western-marxist attitude towards a lot post-soviet countries is spot on. Being russian, I always get this weird slightly different vibe from them of "your history discredited my whole ideology and now I can't have cool revolution in my country because of you"

[@hemanthnair1290]

The orthodox general Western Marxist (non-tankie) take on the USSR was that Russia (or China, for that matter) was the wrong country for a socialist revolution to take place in, given it was a largely agrarian, peasant dominated society, not a mature capitalist economy where socialism could be applied. This was actually the stance of the Mensheviks, and was why they argued for collaboration with liberal bourgeois interests to create a democratic capitalist order in Russia, before transitioning to socialism gradually. Lenin of course, rejected this entirely. But it is an interesting point that no successful Marx-inspired revolution has ever occurred in the heartlands of capitalism, like the US, UK, or Germany. Rather nearly every Communist regime has emerged in a peripheral, 'backward' society which was struggling to achieve capitalist modernity in the first place!

[@Nemerian]

​@@hemanthnair1290 because western proles were either decently happy with center-left perks, or too small and easy to smack down, if they get too violent.

[@xenamorphwinner7931]

@@PlatinumAltaria This comment is old, but as a Lithuanian whose family had history with nazies (one of my great grandfather was jailed by them) and soviets (my part of mother’s family (the Juškas - this is a common surname, you won’t track it) was exiled to Siberia cause the great grandparents worked in agrarian school/institute and their students never sang “The International” instead singing the National anthem and cut all the leather leashes on a carriage (no seriously they didn’t arrive via car), that communist party officials for inspection arrived in) I fully agree with assessment, that that regime was as I like to call “red fascism”. Like having to lear Russian in kindergarten and having your name added a Russian second name (that is usually used to identify father’s name) alongside that Russian was legally the only official language in all Soviet republics, ideological and personality cult of one, than two, than one person propaganda alongside indoctrination (that probably didn’t work pretty well cause Ukraine didn’t surrender, singing and colour revolutions happened) “complete with all the benefits of a police state”( Khan, Metro 2033) Honestly those weird “Marxist” would only recognize if they wanted the Cambodian Red Khmers as red fascist, cause of the whole genocide thing, trough Holodomor and deportations could also be attributed to such. I would go into more detail, but I am probably triggering your attention span so I’ll just leave my favorite quotes: Who needs denazification the most - Russia itself. Obran is Russian prostitute for gas. Reality isn’t real THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM APOCALYPSE IS COMING BUY GOOOLD BYEEEEEE

[@jeffersonclippership2588]

I mean, that's kind of true. We can't have any economic progress even considered here in the US without it being compared to the USSR.

[@IBasBl]

Great video! The only remark I have is that you mix offensive realism (Mearsheimer) vs Defensive Realism (Waltz, Herz). Which, under the analogy of the poker table, propose different dynamics and strategies to the game. Ever since the reformation of realism into neorrealism, these two school of thoughts only agree on the anarchic nature of the system and the rationality of state actors (which have an exclusive role in IIRR). This rationality can be focused into power maximisation (offensive realism) or the sustainability of the balance of power (defensive realism). I’m open to further discussion or clarification if someone is open to it. Keep up the good work!

[@xeanderman6688]

1:17:36 I think this is the most important point raised in the video. We all are guilty of this, and we all should not ignore our biases - and even let the audience know what our biases are. Nobody is above their own bias, no matter how hard they try to eliminate it, myself included.

[@CreepSoldier]

Living in south america and consuming external political content makes me feel i'm living the past, the present and the future all at the same time as things happen around here

[@MichaelRobertHart]

whoa. This really struck me. And puts into words something I couldn’t quite place as I’ve been learning about Bolivar’s projects, I.e., the sometimes boggling pastiche of influences and eras. Classic medieval adventuring aristocrats at the head of Napoleonic patriot armies yet the most decisive forces were essentially horse nomads. Abolition movements and moments of near post racialism in between actual caste systems and emerging scientific racism. The federal / local / Loyalist / revolutionary axes completely rearranged as compared to the American Revolution. The political potency of Catholicism despite the distance of its power base. Even observing how conflicts with indigenous peoples, the tension of central government, fending off colonial powers in the fragile early days…it’s all the same phrases as Unites States history, but every player is substituted. I’m not trying to reduce South American history to some weird dark mirror of North American, just that I agree every description or reference would leave me wondering how to fit it into the narrative and knowledge I thought I knew.

[@shrekeyes2410]

brazil?

[@Green0-3]

Realist here. This will probably get buried, but I'd like to leave my two cents about what you say here, Kraut. You are right in a lot of things here. The problem we have in Realism currently is that most of our academics outright refuse to look beyond the ghost of the Berlin Wall. It sometimes feels like they're getting all their political ideas while taking a dump and staring at their shower curtain, and daydreaming it's made of iron. Meanwhile, there is no real, proper 21st Century school of Realism. We have tried, but the internal divisions between Realists, Neo-realists, Neo-classic realists, the offensive schools and defensive schools, have only served to make each individual Realist thinker unique in his or her view. European Realists, like you said here, will disagree with American Realists over who's the Great Power and who's the poker chip. But some European Realists will argue all of the EU member states are poker chips of Germany and/or France, while others might argue the EU itself is now a Great Power, one that wishes to claim Ukraine as its poker chip. That said, Realist theory still has its uses. I think the best way to approach foreign policy is not to get married permanently to a single school of thought, but rather to use and discard them like mere tools as the situations develop. I may prefer the Realist tool over the rest, but I have in the past, and will continue to use Liberal Institutionalism, Constructivism, the English School, and the Copenhagen School as tools of geopolitical analysis depending on which one best explains what's going on. As for Ukraine, Realist foreign policy in my opinion explains accurately why Russia invaded Ukraine, and why, I believe, they might also try to invade Moldova should they be victorious over Kyiv. Russia is thinking, at least sufficiently, under a Realist framework, and that helps me, as a foreign policy analyst, predict their moves. In the end, Realism may be an old school of thought, and some of its main thinkers are definitely old geezers stuck in the past. But their way of thinking definitely applies when you have countries that are, too, ideologically stuck in the 20th century.

[@Kraut_the_Parrot]

won't get buried ;) I like to favor criticisms so people can see and read them.

[@Fractured_Unity]

I find realism so myopic and reductionist. What power means is different depending on your ideology. It is impossible to separate ideology from any motive or action. No one does anything just for power’s sake, but for what power can acquire. What you wish to use your power for is ideologically based. What gives you any evidence that any action is done simply for power’s sake? Humans are more complicated psychologically than that

[@jesterbeats2898]

@Fractured Unity true about the ideology thing but remember we are humans we are prone to errors just like animals that can't catch a meal everyday it is not reductionist to say that people are selfish and look out for their own power in fact it is pretty on the nose for most humans you might think it is reductionist but that is a bias not our thinking in a our own way, most humans nowadays still love morality but won't take morality in criticism of their own behaviors i.e is why realist are just about ideologically sound and not potent in our ideas like other liberal or conservationist ideology

[@Green0-3]

@@Fractured_Unity "What power means is different depending on your ideology". This is precisely the reason why Realism distances itself from ideology in the first place. The fact that power can acquire stuff is enough for Realism to still apply in foreign policy, while what you do with that power once you have it is irrelevant. If country A invades country B, we don't care about how that action is justified. We just care that it happened. Realists don't think countries do things simply for power's sake. We think that countries seek power, and while the reasons to do so may vary, the fact that they seek power is enough. Also, caveat. Realism only applies to Nations, not people. This is because, in our framework of thinking, national foreign policy is the result of a massive state apparatus acting like a computer, processing the orders of the Head of State into actionable policy with step-by-step instructions on how to carry it out. Some Realists think this 'computer' is 100% rational and objective, others, like myself, think this computer is just as clueless and stupid as your average Joe, full of cognitive biases and internal power dynamics.

[@Jokkkkke]

Have you ever read Alexander Wendt’s response to “The False Promise of International Institutions” by Mearsheirmer? I think that makes a pretty good argument for why social constructivism is an excellent candidate for the fundamental ontological model for IR since realism, and all the other traditions you mention, can all be thought of as different intersubjective understandings that may apply in a given situation depending on the context (aside from the English School cause that shit’s baaad fam)

[@andreasklisch3195]

Chamberlain tried Realism by Appeasement. It failed. Stalin tried Realism by Ribbentrop-Molotov-pact. It failed.

[@glendamendoza6601]

What about Finlandization?

[@andreasklisch3195]

@@glendamendoza6601 Finland had no other choice.

[@zzbeasley]

Two points about Kraut's 'celebrity' method of interpreting Wilhelm and Bismarck. The facts as I know them are that Wilhelm dismissed both Bismarck and his caution about challenging the dominance of the British Navy which held their Empire together. This not their personalities is a realist issue. Likewise the Congress of Vienna demonstrated the operation and behavior of the revisionists who put their faith in the balance of power. Their actions and beliefs are elements for understanding realism not part of 'realist' theory.

[@a-10warthog78]

I can’t explain why, but there’s something terrifying to me about the idea of Kraut opening up his computer and hopping onto any video game.

[@chuckbuck5002]

I can imagine him being griefed in rainbow six siege, only to spend the rest of the match arguing with 15 year olds about western neo-conservatives.

[@a-10warthog78]

@@chuckbuck5002 that is such an accurate representation of the R6 fanbase

[@888alphaable]

Two Genshin accs. Minimum.

[@WorstLandsknechtEver]

​@@chuckbuck5002 American Conservatives*

[@ThighErda]

@@a-10warthog78 R6 can be read as "Rainbow 6" or as a references to the old fashioned way ROBLOX animation is done. Either way, it works.

[@TheChannelofOrange]

Love how Kraut never misses a chance to take a shot at Noam Chomsky

[@Fusseliko]

In this case he misunderstands him thorougly. Don't get me wrong, I disagree with Chomsky's opinion on Ukraine, but this much should be obvious to anyone familiar with the man; Everyone who's taken even a cursory glance at his political history should know that Chomsky has never been a fan of the Soviet Union. The idea that his opposition to western support for Ukraine is based on some twisted revenge fantasy aimed at Eastern Europeans for hastening the demise of the Eastern Bloc is absurd. It stems from an entirely different kind of brainrot common to western leftists - a sort of American Diabolism, a default assumption that in every geopolitical situation, America, and by extension the West must be the bad guy. He isn't secretly nostalgic for the Soviet Union, he hated it while it was a thing, but he's conditioned himself over decades to only see the worst in whatever geopolitics the US currently supports.

[@proselytizingorthodoxpente8304]

To me, the thing with Chomsky is that he seems to promote the very cynicism he condemns in others

[@Nathan-jh1ho]

@@Fusseliko he sure says "the USSR is the farthest thing from what he wants" while simultaneously blasting anyone else who oppose the Soviet Union.

[@Fusseliko]

@@Nathan-jh1ho Just because someone disliked the Soviet Union doesn't mean they had to support their geopolitical enemies. He's a self-described libertarian socialist, of course he'd dislike liberal hegemony aswell. His mistake is that his decades of criticism of US imperialism has left him focusing on it to the exclusion of the other parties involved. In comparison to Putin's Russia, there's no question that European Liberalism is closer to his ideal, but he can't see past US involvement long enough to realize this for himself. We can point this out without wrongly painting him as some sort of closet marxist-leninist suffering from communist nostalgia.

[@shahriyarhakhamanashiya4626]

@@Fusseliko Yeah, but his opposition to the USSR was also what led him to praise the Khmer Rouge... He has several times fallen victim to binary thought, this is but one more time.

[@SchizophrenicRuneterran]

I just recently found your channel, and I'm thoroughly impressed. Your analysis is razor sharp, and your impartiality and objective view of things is crisp and refreshing like Sprite on a hot day. Subscription earned.

[@wintermute5974]

You make some interesting points, but I still found this overall unpersuasive even though I tend to agree with critics of the realist approach to international relations. - While all very influential, only using Morgenthau, Mearsheimer and Kissinger to discuss realism as a theory seems pretty misleading. There's been half a century of development in the IR field since Morgenthau died, and Mearsheimer and Kissinger are only a part of the bigger landscape of realist IR theory. - I don't agree with describing any politician as a 'realist' or 'idealist', actual politics doesn't let people stick to rigid conceptual binaries. At most you could say that were more or less influenced by realist or idealist perspectives that their advisors presented them with. - You're completely right that realists have a systematic tendency to neglect internal political factors in their analysis, but this is a problem of focus rather than a problem with theory. In fact the intstitutional economics perspective you advocate for is completely compatible with a realist perspective - in this model the welfare and prosperity of society becomes another thing that needs to be taken care of to ensure security, because its absence will lead to internal conflict or weakness in the face of external threats. - Your poker metaphor confuses the perspective of major powers (who may see smaller states as 'chips') with what realism says about smaller states. Lots of realist models give a great deal of attention to how small states act. US policy makers thinking vietnam would immediately become part of a grand communist front if the North succeeded says a lot about how those policy makers thought about the communist world, but very little about weaknesses of realism as a theory. Also great powers often spend huge amounts of effort attracting and maintaining the loyalty of smaller powers, rather than casually gambling them for advantage, so I'm not sure poker chips are a good metaphor on any level. - You never really dispute the core premise of realism. You raise some shortcomings, but the essential premise that the interstate order is anarchical and that this inevitably produces risks to security and the possiblity of conflict isn't addressed. - Accepting realism as an accurate perspective on international politics doesn't mean accepting that you must always follow realist principles. For example you could accept that nato expansion provoked Russian aggression in Ukraine, but argue that this is the moral thing to do even if it risks leading to war. - Internal ideology/national makeup is irrelevant to realism in abstract, because the theory is meant explain recurring patterns in interstate behaviour without regard for the identity of those states. But in applicatin internal ideolgy is massively important to explaining who actually ends up in conflict. Also a handful of smaller points - I can't speak for the other two, but the way you describe Habermas at around the 28:00 mark seems very wrong. Developing a universalist moral framework and progressing towards it has been the main theme of his career, and he's often in sharp disagreement with people like Adorno. - 59:50 The European Union is an attempt to break out the cycle of power politics and war *between European nations*. These same nations have continued to play the same game as everyone else in the rest of the world. The EU is a magnificent example of how people can overcome enduring histories of mistrust and violence, but it doesn't say anything about the ability of states to reject power politics. - In this same section, the inability of people to think beyond the cold war is one of the biggest problems with realism, but the broader argument that the realists made has (unfortunately) proven correct. The unipolar moment after the cold war didn't last, and now there is a new security dilemma firmly established, this time centred on the USA and China rather than the USA and the USSR. - 1:05:05 It's wrong to say that empires didn't have answers to the question of 'why'. They did, and it's only in the era of nation-states that those answers stopped being acceptable. Even the USSR had a 'why' (communism), even if it stopped being persuasive after the first couple of decades. - 1:13:10 You seem to be conflating two different positions. Western historians admire Bismark for his immense political skill and his enormous accomplishments manipulating the European balance of power to his interests. German historians condemn Bismark because of historical legacy brought about by his actions. There's no contradiction.

[@rokaskiltinavicius]

As an eastern european who considers himself to be a pretty firm progressive and leftist, I always found the western disdain for eastern self-determination (as most notably parroted by those far-left MEPs) particularly disgusting and unexplainable. Good video

[@paweek5540]

Personally I find it amusing, that the ones denying us agency and claiming us to be just agents of US influence, act a lot like agents of then USSR, now Russian influence themselves. But that's probably a testament to today's political scene here in Poland, and increasing paranoia over who's a friend, and who's a foe.

[@aa9945]

macedonian here. i think we are the peak of "you don't get self-determination because it feels wrong." I empathize greatly with most of the exploited nations of the world for this reason, even the ones exploiting my country.

[@coops1992]

''they are all Russian anyway'' :))

[@MrMarinus18]

As a western European I mostly find it weird as I feel the east represent what I consider the spirit of Europe far better. I think the most "European" of all nations is Poland for better and for worse.

[@ericquiabazza2608]

That is the think, most North emisphere SYMPATHISE. YET, It has never trully suffer the NOW Imperialistic HAMMER and see the inpunity. HERE inghe SOUTH, the Disgust for this ABUSE is PRIMAL As MY PARENTS who are LESS than 50 pass their CHILHOOD under MILITARY Dictatorship All the "Soviet bad" spew where suffer by the ADULTS of today under "Capitalistic Democracy" and we, their children suffer the Cocecuences. Yet it was just that, as acrion against us and other CONTINUES AND CONTINUES. Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Philipines, Most of Central America, Palestina, Argentinaz Uruguay, etc etc. Basicly ALL americas from mwxico down, Almost all middle east, parts of oceania, and region in africa but dont know much about them for their lack of conection to this medium of comunication. If you want a Realist that ISNT NORTH AMERICAN OR EUROPEAN Search Che guevara An idealist in soul, a Rich kid who become a doctor and abandone EVERITHING when Reality Hit him in the face There is even a movie of his roud trought south america, just before the american authoritarian hammer. Heck, he fear said hammer, and it fall on 2-3 years after his execution as a POW.

[@yuhboijosiah8083]

When I'm in a genocide denial/support competition and my opponent is Noam Chomsky: 😰

[@fugurilover]

it was so interesting to watch, the introduction of the realism, the comparison of it with idealism and other political philosophies along with the following critique were truly captivating and thought-provoking. thank you.

[@AaronMichaelLong]

"You can do anything you like with bayonets, except sit on them." was Talleyrand, not Metternich.

[@midnightflare9879]

I'm really curious why KZbin has demonetized all of your videos. You don't curse, display disturbing images, or promote any hateful messages, and you talk about sensitive topics in a very careful, delicate way. You have one of the calmest, most polite narrating styles among video essayists. What was KZbin's reasoning?

[@laurentiuvladutmanea3622]

Because he is a history youtuber. And an accurate, and well informed one at that, who make long videos. KZbin does not want such things. It wants things that are easy to monetize and mass produce for consumption and selling adds.

[@quinnodonnell3906]

"Politics? Sounds risky. Demonetized."

[@Adsper2000]

He talks a lot about genocide and racism and Russia, the youtube word-flagger system probably found him and decided he was a brand risk even though his videos are against all three of those things.

[@Kaiyanwang82]

The explanations given are probably valid, but I have my own conspiracy theory, the same reason I think why Meta is so easy with Russian propaganda if you exclude direct corruption (which can still be the case). There is a country that has a lot of people, and many of these people are hired by American tech for many jobs including forms of moderation. Many from that country are pro-Russia. Kraut is strongly critical of Russia.

[@ChucksSEADnDEAD]

​@@Kaiyanwang82 Ding ding ding. NerdCity exposed this back in 2017 but in the context of human reviewers flagging LGBT-related videos as inappropriate. I wouldn't have made the connection to pro-Russian sentiment.

[@flynnstone3133]

Thank you Kraut! Very few youtubers actually discuss and critique academic theories in depth so it’s a breath of fresh air to see something like this.

[@somethingsomething9753]

42:10 You wan't me to debate marxists who suppourt ruzzia but I beleive this to be a waste of time as they are irrelevant and impssible to reason with proceeds to roast the fuck out of them for 10 minutes

[@Conn30Mtenor]

Agreed. That was fantastic.

[@haberdasherrykr8886]

Can you list some other KZbin channels like this

[@angelikaskoroszyn8495]

I've always been frustrated with the way I was taught history. It was always "this king conquered this land, that king lost it" again, again and again. And then, as the topic of WWII was closing in, my history teacher said "BTW for some time already Ukrainians had been striving for national independence. Polish / Ukrainian ethnic tensions would result in Eastern front being even more of a shitthow than needed" I was like "wtf that's important political developedment. Why are we learning about it just now? Why Ukrainian independence movements havn't been mentioned earlier in history?" This is how realists seem to see the world. They see Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth - a huge power house able to bully Eastern Europe. They don't see how this bullying could sour Polish / Ukrainian relationships centuries later. They see Russian tzardom with its great resources, both human and material. They don't see all of the nations fearing and hating Moskaw, ready to move away from it as soon as possible

[@thunderluke6432]

Please never stop producing such high quality videos. You present us all concepts and ideas so objectively that we realize much times how shrouded in misconceptions we can be sometimes.

[@kaimanyu586]

Is it really objectively? Did you also get from this video that Ukraine only has support from the West and a handful of non Western nations. The West is less than 15% of the world population... You should ask yourself why only a small minority of the world supports Ukraine.. This clearly biased video won't explain that question to you. If you believe I'm wrong, then explain why you only see Zelensky going around with his begging bowl in western nations?

[@Jobe-13]

This feels like a part 2 to your “History Does NOT Repeat” video.

[@theduchyofmilanball3157]

Something came to mind when i first watched this. The Melian Dialogues being used as an example of why realism is necessary seems odd to me. Because it overlooks a critical detail of the Peloponnesian wars. Athens Lost Hard The result of the dialogues is that what remained of Melia was basically pushed into an alliance with Sparta. Bringing about what Athens had been trying to prevent in the first place. And it basically set the standard of everyone in the greek world teaming up with Sparta to dismantle the Athenian empire. Twice. In the end, Athens schemes for dominion over the greek world ultimately lead to its devastation. And a power vacuum that allowed Phillip of Macedon to essentially roll in and take everything.

[@hirdbarding3399]

you forgot to mention that Athens restored after that, and created its empire for a second time, before Philip rolled in, even on a smaller scale. And everyone who teamed against it lost . Sparta become just a shadow of itself quite soon after a "victory" thanks to its own inability and political incompetence and a theban leaderships. (that drained itself after deaths of prominent leaders.) Athens still posed a treat even to Macedon (Lamian War, another revolt against Antigonus Gonatus later), and survived over culturally and politically far longer than any of its opponents.

[@theduchyofmilanball3157]

@@hirdbarding3399 A question Sicilian expedition was during the second Peloponnese war correct.

[@hirdbarding3399]

@@theduchyofmilanball3157 more like inbetween 2 phases, but yeah, during the second part. Decisive loss.

[@tavoreparan8091]

He brings up the Melian Dialogues a second time much later in the video... as an illustration of why realism is bunk, because said poker chips have their own beliefs and agendas and do their own thing.

[@whitegoose2017]

​@@hirdbarding3399 Lacedaemon practically destroyed itself. They just ran out of men for their army, because only citizens could become part of the fighting force of their elite Spartiates. It was impossible to naturalize to become a citizen of Sparta. Everyone else were slaves-- helots or second class citizens. So when warfare inevitably evolved their rivals outgrew the outdated Spartan military doctrine and smashed them to pieces. Oh and by the time they implemented reform to fix their manpower problems it was already too late as their rivals had grown too strong.

[@k98killer]

Halfway through after putting off watching this for 5 months. Really good so far. Gonna finish watching then share it around.

[@nickzardiashvili624]

Rabelais' quote - "Science without conscience is but ruin of the soul." - reminds me of King Crimson's Epitaph: "Knowledge is a deadly friend if no one sets the rules." The song on the whole deals with the fear of nuclear war, which is no wonder considering it was released in 1969.

[@Raveneye2000]

This sounds like the world was a starry-eyed child full of hope, went through a bunch of trauma, and then became an edgy teen who got too high off of misunderstanding Nietzche.

[@biyigagoupolos827]

Historians when they find out genocide existed in 19th cent. European colonies before the 1940s: 🤯🤯🤯

[@E.G.I.L.3D]

People were pieces of shit from the start, what a surprise

[@activistbook3809]

Right … a grudge against Eastern European… bruh this analysis was soo off

[@activistbook3809]

Mis quoting Chomsky seems to trendy

[@mikhaelgribkov4117]

@Activist Book Chomsky is just pathetic old man who was always eastern imperialist.

[@friendofmaurice]

Thanks for letting me chip in at the start, it was a blast to work with you.

[@valentinaman2257]

this is the first video ive seen of this channel and i find it amazing, entertaining and really informative

[@starliaghtsz8400]

i wish you've depicted more on the ideals of realism which is preserving peace, altho kinda overused, the concert of europe is a rather successful application of the balance of power principle. its not there wasnt war, but europe avoided great power conflicts, aka decade spanning wars with multiple great powers on either side

[@bigsmilebobby]

Yeah, just for it to unfold wildly in the coming days. Ask around France, and you will see that Germanophobia hasn't been this high for a long long while

[@MeeesterBond17]

The Crimean war didn't span decades, true, but it was a war between great powers. One could argue the concert of Europe broke down not too long after it began due to the 1830 revolutions.

[@yang592]

As someone who has lived in a country where extremism and ideological politics changed it's social way of thinking (Venezuela), this video helped me analyze how other cultures outside of my native country view our political/social crisis. It's a shame these "realists" doesn't count on the fact about our history and our struggles among ourselves in the matter.

[@BORN753]

Venezuela is a prime example of true Socialism. One of the richest countries on the globe went into hell for nothing, and everyone is okay with that because they don't care about people, they care about cheap oil. Maduro was even invited and present at COP27 climate summit😅

[@bungiecrimes7247]

These realists? 💀

[@accelerationquanta5816]

There's no such thing as "extremism".

[@freddy4603]

@@accelerationquanta5816 🤓

[@FWAKWAKKA]

you cant possibly think venezuelas government and people are representing a form of "Extremism" thats fucking ridiculous. were at the point where a milquetoast social democratic revolution with the GOAL of slowly achieving a socialist reorganization, is somehow far left on the spectrum. or somehow authoritarian when every criticism brought to light, has been thoroughly shown to be blatantly untrue at best. youre a bot, and you do not live in venezuela, if you were of this opinion, youd have been one of the "many who returned home to venezuela after maduro embraced capitalism." which he never did, but was written as doing so in western media. you would be following that idiotic mentality. and you wouldnt be making such bold and openly ignorant assertions.

[@Edax_Royeaux]

I can already see the flaw in Realism's critique of Napoleon. Napoleon was not the originator of the Coalitions, Revolutionary France was due to their destabilizing radical ideas. And despite the vast number of nations sweeping down on Revolutionary France, the French won. The First and Second Coalition Wars fell over fighting Revolutionary France and was fought for ideological reasons, and the Third, Forth and Filth Coalitions were defeated by Napoleon. It can even be argued that it was these Coalitions in the first place that caused so much territory to change hands, Napoleon himself was not that aggressive. The entrenched monarchies at the time, did not view Napoleon all that differently than the Revolutionaries, they mostly sought to re-install a Bourbon on the throne, even though the Bourbons were not the most peaceful of dynasties and thus such an action would not have been directly in their national interests to do so. Putting Louis XVIII on the French throne resulted in a regime so weak and unloved by the French people that it invited Napoleon to retake France without ever firing a shot. What did the most serious damage to Napoleon was not even from the Coalitions, but from Napoleon taking aggressive action against Russia for violating the continental blockade they had agreed to. Had Napoleon left Russia alone and not tried to isolate Britain so hard, Europe might have remained French-dominated, consolidated under the Napoleonic Code.

[@vayate1234]

Revolutionary France was beset by enemies who in their antagonism created Napoleon.

[@dsodragon8152]

Man I'm always in awe of how you explain such complex topics, so elegantly.

[@asbest2092]

he did not explain it at all he just named several justifications and that's all. Explaining an ideology means to tell what it really is, not to name the things it uses to justify itself. You can not "explain" nazism, for example, by saying "this is an idea of preserving your atlantis blood clear so you can use magic and rule the world how your ancestors did", no, to explain this you say "nazis are those who want to eradicate other races because they just don't like how they look". Don't mix the real explanation and just a repeating of fairy tales the ideology says itself.

[@GreyKingBE]

I love seeing that European channels finally are getting some love on KZbin. This has thought me a lot about my own backyard, that of the Benelux and an EU view. I'm happy to see well researched critiques and how it applies to our current understanding of geopolitics. Keep on it lad, love your stuff! Btw, first time I ever heard geopolitical critique on Bismarck, really looking forward to your next critique of Prussian militarism 😉

[@fatgigachad2430]

I feel like no one school of thought can truly explain the world. Realism explains some stuff well but I’d say it’s only about 50% of his the world works. Assuming everyone to be rational it’s it’s main flaw. In part do to all the senseless evil we see before us.

[@hunord.9903]

I would say it is an ecosystem of schools as some diplomats can subscribe to one over the other, so they will try to act out the ideas behind the schools. Realists vs Constructivists vs Liberals will be an age old dance.

[@mr_b_hhc]

Not convinced by the majority of your argument but I do completely agree that one school of thought is insufficient to understand everything. The reductive nature of all philosophical models make them incomplete, therefore to apply all logic and action within their frameworks will not be the best approach. It never creases to amaze me how intelligent people act irrationally and give the most flimsy arguments based in nearly every case on a bias stemming from this fallacy that their model is the right one.

[@mr_b_hhc]

@@hunord.9903 Do you think, like me, that this is a function of self interest? Supporting the doctrine and model which expands and / or maintains their most personally advantageous society.

[@CtrlAltDlt68]

No model is correct. Some are useful.

[@MegaBanne]

Realism is complete garbage. It is a theory that is wrong. It isn't a perspective. It isn't even limited to parts of reality. It makes assumptions that are wrong. It is the geopolitics of simple minded apes.

[@genmontgomeree9888]

Kraut, I’d be careful with putting Europeans in one monolithic group. I’m Belgian and I can say that many Belgians probably don’t think the same way about Central and Eastern Europe as you, an Austrian. I’m all for pan-European camaraderie but I can tell that a lot of Belgians look down on Poles for example. I had my Erasmus there and I had such a great time there and I met Poles in a more intimate and amicable way than many of my fellow Belgians ever will. They might be somewhat pessimistic and frustrated, but once you start knowing them you can be amazed by their friendship and solidarity.

[@deriznohappehquite]

I think Kraut is a European nationalist.

[@nikolavideomaker]

@@deriznohappehquite Obviously, he is. He had this video made about Austria being focused on the Danube region, lmao. Austria right after blocked Romania from the EU. In terms of modern europe he is a bit delusional.

[@stephenjenkins7971]

@@nikolavideomaker Eh, ideologies tend to morph how people interpret things. I remember how he believed that this war would supercharge the independence of Europe into an independent polity not necessarily as highly influenced by the US anymore. But instead it seems like US influence returned at the expense of French and German. He reached a different conclusion than I did, but that's understandable in my eyes, with his ideology.

[@starmaker75]

Yeah while it nice to Europeans help each other out, however discrimination still seem to be a problem in the EU.

[@angelikaskoroszyn8495]

There's this frustrating need to claim some kind of superiority among European nations. Ironicallly I can recognize similar sentiments in Poland where some Poles might look down upon Romani people I think it's a part of human nature. If you personally don't have anything worthy in yourself you might find validation in your ingroup. In order to make your tribe superior you have to find those who are inferior. This way it doesn't matter that you personally are not really that exceptional while your coworker climbs the corporate ladder. You came from the superior tribe, he came from the inferior tribe. He probably cheated to reach the place he is in now It's both frustrating as well as pathetic

[@georgesdelatour]

Regarding the quote "you can do anything with a bayonet, but you can't sit on it”: I was taught it was made by Napoleon during the Peninsula War, not Metternich. Either way, we have conflicting data on bayonet success at delivering social transformation. The relatively brief US military occupations of Germany and Japan after WW2 were very successful at nudging those societies towards America-friendly values, while the 20-year-long occupation of Afghanistan was a total failure. The 45-year-long Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe was also a total failure. Gorbachev announced in early 1989 that the Red Army would no longer intervene militarily in those countries, and by the year’s end, all of them had ceased to be Communist. I think the key difference is, both Germany and Japan had prominent western-friendly domestic traditions for the US to draw on. If you look at modern Japanese banknotes, they show prominent 19th century Meiji-era reformers like Yukichi Fukuzawa and Shurei Matsuzaki. I’m not sure who their equivalents in Afghanistan would be. Maybe there just aren’t any.

[@watchm4ker]

The other reason was the US briefly realized that leaving a defeated shell of a country is just going to make the next generation you, and so threw money at rebuilding those nations. After the Cold War ended, however, the US lost its taste for rebuilding broken countries - especially the ones it broke.

[@georgesdelatour]

@@watchm4ker The US was in Afghanistan for 20 years. They spent trillions of dollars on the occupation, not just on the military, but on education, infrastructure etc. Yet as soon as they withdrew their troops, the Taliban they had previously overthrown immediately came back. Adam Curtis made an excellent documentary, “Bitter Lake”, commenting on the occupation. The most famous sequence of the film shows an American art teacher trying to explain Marcel Duchamp’s conceptual artwork, “Fountain” - an inverted male urinal - to a group of recently liberated Afghan women. The film's implication was that, if the best you’ve got to show for your culture is that, maybe you no longer have any values worth transmitting to the rest of the world…

[@watchm4ker]

@@georgesdelatour Marcel DuChamp was a French Dadist. Of course his work was critical of Western culture, he survived the First World War.That kind of self-criticism and self-reflection could have served the country well in finding ways to express the flaws and absurdities in its own culture.

[@georgesdelatour]

@@watchm4ker They tried that. It didn't work. The Taliban may be odious to us, but they believe in something. Duchamp (and the current US government) believe in nothing. You can't build a new society on pure negation.

[@666ILIKECAKE]

"eastern Europeans are actually ahead of us in political development" Romania:👀👀👀👀

[@nicossbots]

so true, the far right in on the rise here and i'm so scared

[@trueordrue]

​@@nicossbotshow far right in Romania express themselves ? Not from Romania just curious.

[@wangoif7301]

“…and almost immediately drove that claim into an Iraqi ditch.” I’m laughing but it hurts.

[@dannylojkovic5205]

I laughed my ass off when you pointed out Marxists are using an American argument for hegemony to make a point 😂

[@nicbahtin4774]

Yea a real "usefull idiot" moment

[@honkhonk8009]

Probably why we Americans hate Marxists so much. The only Marxists we ever had in our country was Chomsky type fuckers. These people never say anything usefull other than being ego fueled conspiracy theorists. I wish there was an explanation as to why our country goes fucking insane with conspiracy theories so much.

[@dannylojkovic5205]

@@honkhonk8009 I think it’s the fact the US has very loose free speech laws and a culture of standing up to authority. It’s just a lot of people on the far-right and far-left see their ideas as to a ton of authority as the just authority so to speak

[@SatanicDoge]

@@dannylojkovic5205 There's a long culture in the Untied States of "my ignorance is superior to your knowledge" and a general distrust of institutions and elites (the latter of which can certainly be good things, to be fair!). You can trace it back to the Great Awakenings of the 1800s, and how certain groups of Americans responded to the Scientific Revolution.

[@JozefLucifugeKorzeniowski]

the realists idealize Metternich? but Metternich was driven by sheer moral imperitive. he was horrified by the amount of casualties during the Napoleonic wars and was obsessed with erecting firm boundaries against the avarice of despots. also Metternich's efforts made marginal gains for Austria but Austria was still the weakest power being represented at the Vienna congress. even defeated France still had more military power.

[@Tigran-Abazyan]

And Austria is so weak in that time that they lost the chance to unify Germany giving it to Prussia a much smaller state but industrial and armed powerhouse.

[@akagi007]

First 40 minutes of this video is like well tuned ambient music, something as Brian Eno's album for Airports... but then... holly molly... out of blue sky... The Prodigy hurricane starts. Smashing and nailing in high BPM all Amway salesmen of world order and international relations... uff what great concert.

[@firei11]

Kraut perfectly encapsulates my frustration with political theorists who deny the agency of "small nations", in a far more eloquent way than I ever could... and does so in a side note. Really highlights the great overall quality of the video! EDIT: It's funny to watch people in the replies get mad about things I didn't say.

[@mitchyoung93]

Realists don't 'deny their agency', they just note their agency isn't worth much.

[@user-yn6kw5dl8k]

@@mitchyoung93 Yeah, mellians had an agency and they used it to die.

[@smo-king6504]

@@mitchyoung93 bro you can't say that think of their feelings. I swear people act like because small nations deserve agency it means that they have it

[@senefelder]

Realists don’t deny the agency of small nations. They claim they theories that purposely don’t take in consideration the agency of small nations make better predictions. Mearsheimer, for example, believes that his version of realism makes better predictions in around 75% of situations, give or take. I don’t agree with that and it is incredibly frustrating for many people.

[@mysticonthehill]

@@mitchyoung93 Realists claim that but that actions and words don't support that claim.

[@clement28300yip]

Never realized that realism bears an uncanny resemblance to imperialism.

[@fogrepairshipakashi5834]

Hey Kraut, I think it would be interesting if you could do a historical look at how the First World War started, because it is a fascinating look at how many factors and society structures can come together. I also feel that Wilhelm's role is somewhat misrepresented, as there is evidence that he at one point tried to stop WWI, though rather ineffectivly.